On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:40:02 -0700, kmr wrote:

You suggest not using names as a primary key, and instead using auto numbers
or employee ID. I have a problem with, and maybe it's easy to solve and that
I'm just not thinking of it. So, I have one table with all my staff and an
employee ID and a second table with the employee ID and all the drill
information. When I go to enter new drills, I will either need to have all
employee IDs memorized or I will need to look at the other table to see what
the employee ID is. To me, this is creating more work. The reason I chose
to use first names was so that I don't have to memorize anything, and I just
type everything in without having to think. I have 80 staff, I really can't
try to memorize anything or have to look back each time to see what their ID
number is.

Ummmm...

No.

You don't need to enter the ID.
You don't even need to SEE the ID!!!

It sounds like you're entering data directly into the table datasheet. That's
not how Access is designed to work!

Instead you would use a Form based on the table; on this Form you would have a
Combo Box which displays the employee's name, but stores the ID.

Use the tools that Access provides!!

You might want to look at some of these resources and tutorials, particularly
Crystal's video:

Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/acc...resources.html

The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

Roger Carlson's tutorials, samples and tips:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/

A free tutorial written by Crystal:
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

A video how-to series by Crystal:
http://www.YouTube.com/user/LearnAccessByCrystal

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials

--

John W. Vinson [MVP]