Organizing Table

First of all...Thank you for all of your help.

Now more questions:
I am using the database to maintain the budget and forecast processes, each
of which has many versions. I created 3 tables, tblYear (2010, 2009,
2008...), tblCycle(Budget, 1qForecast, 2qForecast, Final...) and tblVersion
(10/1/2009 12:00 PM, 10/15/2009 12:30 PM). If I understand you correctly I
should have this as one table?


--
Thank You,
Steve


"Jeff Boyce" wrote:

Steve

I'm with John on this...

Adding another field to handle another month means you'll always be
maintaining the application, updating the table structure, the queries, the
forms, the reports, etc.

Moreover, since Access is optimized for well-normalized data, if you try to
feed it 'sheet data, both you and Access will have to work overtime to come
up with (unnecessary) work-arounds.

I suspect that folks with experience using Excel before considering Access
have a BIGGER task coming up to speed, as they have to unlearn some of what
they've been doing if they want to make good/efficient/effective use of the
tool.

Best of luck!

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

--
Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or psuedocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
guarantee as to suitability.

You can thank the FTC of the USA for making this disclaimer
possible/necessary.

"Steve D" wrote in message
...
I get what you are saying but I would like to understand better how the
database works. Why is it better to use the full date and have many
records
than to use one table with 12 months and one table with the years?
I felt like I needed the Year table. I am using the database to manage the
budget and forecast cycles, so I have a table called tblCycle and I wanted
to
be able to relate that with a year so I would be able to pull the 2007
budget, etc.., but now I think I could just query using the month field or
Year([dtmMonth)].

Am I on the right path?
--
Thank You,
Steve


"John W. Vinson" wrote:

On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:07:01 -0700, Steve D

wrote:

I am ultimately going to want to use a crosstab query that will show
multiple
years in the rows. Do you still suggest using date/time?

Even more strongly, yes.

You can crosstab by year using Year([datefield]) as the Column Head - or
by
year and month using Format([datefield], "yyyy-mm"), or by week using
DatePart([datefield], "ww"). Like I said, great flexibility!
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]
.



.

Steve

I'm having trouble envisioning how 2010, 2009 and 2008 is a table? Can you
provide an example of what data you are storing in that table?

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

--
Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or psuedocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
guarantee as to suitability.

You can thank the FTC of the USA for making this disclaimer
possible/necessary.

"Steve D" wrote in message
...
First of all...Thank you for all of your help.

Now more questions:
I am using the database to maintain the budget and forecast processes,
each
of which has many versions. I created 3 tables, tblYear (2010, 2009,
2008...), tblCycle(Budget, 1qForecast, 2qForecast, Final...) and
tblVersion
(10/1/2009 12:00 PM, 10/15/2009 12:30 PM). If I understand you correctly I
should have this as one table?


--
Thank You,
Steve


"Jeff Boyce" wrote:

Steve

I'm with John on this...

Adding another field to handle another month means you'll always be
maintaining the application, updating the table structure, the queries,
the
forms, the reports, etc.

Moreover, since Access is optimized for well-normalized data, if you try
to
feed it 'sheet data, both you and Access will have to work overtime to
come
up with (unnecessary) work-arounds.

I suspect that folks with experience using Excel before considering
Access
have a BIGGER task coming up to speed, as they have to unlearn some of
what
they've been doing if they want to make good/efficient/effective use of
the
tool.

Best of luck!

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

--
Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or psuedocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
guarantee as to suitability.

You can thank the FTC of the USA for making this disclaimer
possible/necessary.

"Steve D" wrote in message
...
I get what you are saying but I would like to understand better how the
database works. Why is it better to use the full date and have many
records
than to use one table with 12 months and one table with the years?
I felt like I needed the Year table. I am using the database to manage
the
budget and forecast cycles, so I have a table called tblCycle and I
wanted
to
be able to relate that with a year so I would be able to pull the 2007
budget, etc.., but now I think I could just query using the month field
or
Year([dtmMonth)].

Am I on the right path?
--
Thank You,
Steve


"John W. Vinson" wrote:

On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:07:01 -0700, Steve D

wrote:

I am ultimately going to want to use a crosstab query that will show
multiple
years in the rows. Do you still suggest using date/time?

Even more strongly, yes.

You can crosstab by year using Year([datefield]) as the Column Head -
or
by
year and month using Format([datefield], "yyyy-mm"), or by week using
DatePart([datefield], "ww"). Like I said, great flexibility!
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]
.



.

Jeff,

I have been using Hyperion Enterprise at work and from a user perspective it
looks to me that it has several individual tables that you choose from to
retrieve data (I'm sure the programming is much more sophisticated but I am
going with what I see) So each data value has a corresponding Period, Entity,
Frequency, Category, etc... So I am trying to re-create something that works
the same way for my call center volume planning model. Each of my values will
have a Year (2008, 2009...), Month (Jan, Feb, Mar...), Cycle (Budget, Q1
Fcst, Q2 Fcst...), Version (10/1/09, 10/15/09...) and Call Type (Billing,
General Info, Quality of Service...) at the end of the day I have one table
with multiple lookups that looks like:

Year, Month, Cycle, Version, Call Type, # of Calls
2009, Jan, Q3 Fcst, 10/1/09, Billing, 25000
2009, Feb, Q3 Fcst, 10/1/09, Billing, 24000
2009, Mar, Q3 Fcst, 10/1/09, Billing, 23000
2009, Jan, Q3 Fcst, 10/15/09, Billing, 26000
2009, Feb, Q3 Fcst, 10/15/09, Billing, 25000
2009, Mar, Q3 Fcst, 10/15/09, Billing, 24000
2009, Jan, Budget, 10/15/09, Billing, 26500
2009, Feb, Budget, 10/15/09, Billing, 25500
2009, Mar, Budget, 10/15/09, Billing, 24500

--
Thank You,
Steve


"Jeff Boyce" wrote:

Steve

I'm having trouble envisioning how 2010, 2009 and 2008 is a table? Can you
provide an example of what data you are storing in that table?

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

--
Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or psuedocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
guarantee as to suitability.

You can thank the FTC of the USA for making this disclaimer
possible/necessary.

"Steve D" wrote in message
...
First of all...Thank you for all of your help.

Now more questions:
I am using the database to maintain the budget and forecast processes,
each
of which has many versions. I created 3 tables, tblYear (2010, 2009,
2008...), tblCycle(Budget, 1qForecast, 2qForecast, Final...) and
tblVersion
(10/1/2009 12:00 PM, 10/15/2009 12:30 PM). If I understand you correctly I
should have this as one table?


--
Thank You,
Steve


"Jeff Boyce" wrote:

Steve

I'm with John on this...

Adding another field to handle another month means you'll always be
maintaining the application, updating the table structure, the queries,
the
forms, the reports, etc.

Moreover, since Access is optimized for well-normalized data, if you try
to
feed it 'sheet data, both you and Access will have to work overtime to
come
up with (unnecessary) work-arounds.

I suspect that folks with experience using Excel before considering
Access
have a BIGGER task coming up to speed, as they have to unlearn some of
what
they've been doing if they want to make good/efficient/effective use of
the
tool.

Best of luck!

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

--
Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or psuedocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
guarantee as to suitability.

You can thank the FTC of the USA for making this disclaimer
possible/necessary.

"Steve D" wrote in message
...
I get what you are saying but I would like to understand better how the
database works. Why is it better to use the full date and have many
records
than to use one table with 12 months and one table with the years?
I felt like I needed the Year table. I am using the database to manage
the
budget and forecast cycles, so I have a table called tblCycle and I
wanted
to
be able to relate that with a year so I would be able to pull the 2007
budget, etc.., but now I think I could just query using the month field
or
Year([dtmMonth)].

Am I on the right path?
--
Thank You,
Steve


"John W. Vinson" wrote:

On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:07:01 -0700, Steve D

wrote:

I am ultimately going to want to use a crosstab query that will show
multiple
years in the rows. Do you still suggest using date/time?

Even more strongly, yes.

You can crosstab by year using Year([datefield]) as the Column Head -
or
by
year and month using Format([datefield], "yyyy-mm"), or by week using
DatePart([datefield], "ww"). Like I said, great flexibility!
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]
.



.



.

On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:51:01 -0700, Steve D
wrote:

I have been using Hyperion Enterprise at work and from a user perspective it
looks to me that it has several individual tables that you choose from to
retrieve data

Access is NOT a flawed implementation of Hyperion Enterprise.
Hyperion Enterprise is likewise NOT a flawed implementation of Access.

Trying to apply the logic and design conventions of one software package to
another will be an exercise in frustration! If you're going to use Access, I'd
really recommend that you use it on its own terms, as it's designed to be
used. This would NOT include creating a new table every year, or every
quarter.

The table you post looks like one piece of a reasonable structure, but if
you're still thinking of "a 2008 table" or a "February table" you're on the
wrong track.

--

John W. Vinson [MVP]

My intention was never to build a seperate table for each year, just a table
that contained all of the years (tblYear), and one that contained all of the
months (tblMonth - 12 records - no more, no less). The table I showed as an
example would reference all of those individual tables so if I needed to
change a version name or add a year I would do it in the respective tables,
tblVersion or tblYear, and the changes would be made globally. Sorry if that
wasn't clear.
--
Thank You,
Steve


"John W. Vinson" wrote:

On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:51:01 -0700, Steve D
wrote:

I have been using Hyperion Enterprise at work and from a user perspective it
looks to me that it has several individual tables that you choose from to
retrieve data

Access is NOT a flawed implementation of Hyperion Enterprise.
Hyperion Enterprise is likewise NOT a flawed implementation of Access.

Trying to apply the logic and design conventions of one software package to
another will be an exercise in frustration! If you're going to use Access, I'd
really recommend that you use it on its own terms, as it's designed to be
used. This would NOT include creating a new table every year, or every
quarter.

The table you post looks like one piece of a reasonable structure, but if
you're still thinking of "a 2008 table" or a "February table" you're on the
wrong track.

--

John W. Vinson [MVP]
.