January 24th, 2006, 01:33 PM
posted to microsoft.public.access.forms
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Adding Multiple rows at a time
Thanks, Jeff!
Fred
"Jeff Boyce" -DISCARD_HYPHEN_TO_END wrote in message
...
Fred
Clearly, I hadn't had enough caffeine this morning when I responded. If
your situation requires assigning a status to every registered individual,
you'll need to load them all in, sooner or later.
I was considering only a "present/absent" determination.
Regards
Jeff Boyce
Office/Access MVP
"Fred Boer" wrote in message
...
Dear Jeff.. and Slider!:
Well, I am always interested in learning the correct/best way to do
things,
so if you don't mind some follow-up...
I understand what you are suggesting, Jeff, about the use of paired
listboxes. I have created an application that uses multi-select paired
listboxes. But... let's assume that I want to be a data bigot, too g.
What
would you suggest to manage the situation I described, where it isn't
simply
a yes/no, but where there are multiple values for attendance? Or am I
missing the point?
I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this!
Cheers!
Fred
"Jeff Boyce" -DISCARD_HYPHEN_TO_END wrote in
message
...
Yah! I carefully chose my terminology. As a recovering Statistics
instructor, precision counts g.
The only reason I can imagine for storing a dummy record of attendee
(i.e.,
someone who wasn't there) is if there's a chance I missed someone in
taking
attendance, and I would later want to check them off. However, there
are
other ways to handle this, without resorting to putting what amounts to
bogus records in the table.
Now, to the point of determining who did NOT attend a particular class
session. I'd be inclined (yes, some folks call me 'bent') to use a
query
that, for a given class session, finds registered students who were NOT
in
the table for that class session. Registered students would come from
another table that keeps a (single) list of everyone who signed up for
the
"class".
From an esthetic/elegance standpoint, I don't see a reason to store
dummies,
just to make using a form easier (but then, I'm something of a data
bigot).
An alternate approach to "checking off" attendance for a class session
can
be found up-thread. I'd probably use paired listboxes to generate the
append/insert operations for attendees. My (roman/latin,
left-to-right)
approach would put a list (box) of registered students on the left, a
list
(box) of (registered) students attending on the right, a way to shift
students back/forth (command buttons, which added/removed students from
the
"attended" box), and a way to specify class/session/date/time on the
form.
But that's JOPO (just one person's opinion)
--
Regards
Jeff Boyce
Office/Access MVP
"Fred Boer" wrote in message
...
Hello!
PMFJI...
Jeff, I have created a small program to track attendance in my
classes.
I
use a system similar in general concept to that created by Slider. I
wonder
if "useless" would be correct with respect to the "dummy" attendees.
Could
there possibly be value in knowing that someone didn't attend a class?
In
other words, for all my students for a class on a given day, I need to
know
if they attended or not; thus, I need a record indicating attendance
for
every student. I suppose I might be able to derive this by querying
for
nulls, however. Still, it seems reasonable to me, or am I misguided?
In addition, just to expand the discussion, I like this approach
because
tracking attendance (at least for me, and I know that the OP didn't
specify
this!) involves more than just being present/absent. In my record
keeping
I
record 4 states: Present, Late, Absent (i.e. known excused absence),
Unknown
(unexcused absence or, I suppose.. teacher failed to mark attendance
g).
I
can do this by creating a "dummy" record for each student, set to
"Unknown"
as the default value.
I *do* appreciate the ease of data entry that this approach affords
me:
I
press a button, and the just check the appropriate value for each
student.
However, I'd be happy to get any suggestions that might indicate a
better
approach!
Cheers!
Fred Boer
P.S. I just *love* the concept of "dummy" attendees! Not that any of
my
students would qualify.. 
"Jeff Boyce" -DISCARD_HYPHEN_TO_END wrote in
message
...
If you are saying that you are filling a table with "dummy"
attendees,
and
checking only those that actually attended, you'd be storing useless
(and
potentially confusing) records.
Or did I misunderstand?
--
Regards
Jeff Boyce
Office/Access MVP
"Slider" wrote in message
ups.com...
Thanks Jeff
What I've actually ended up doing (after having another crack at it
this morning) is as follows.
User opens a form which allows them to pick a date, then clicks a
button which launches a macro.
The macro first runs an append table query which basically creates
a
new entry in the attendance table for all possible attendees for
that
date.
It then opens a form in a datasheet view that is based on a query
pulling out all the entries from the attendance table for that
date.
The user is then able to use a checkbox to indicate present/not
present, and simply close down the form when they are finished. All
records are of course saved when they do this.
This approach certainly has some dissadvantages, especially in
presentation, but I'm working on those.
Do you see any glaring holes in this approach that I may have
overlooked?
Thanks
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