I'm baaaaack!
https://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=60092.msg1208245#msg1208245New problems with Access. To be honest, the problems aren't with Access, the problem is that I don't know enough about Access to even begin to tap its capabilities. Nonetheless ...
I work part-time in a municipal office in a small town. The town uses Microsoft Office -- but they don't let us peons have Access. I have Access on my computer at home, however. I just don't know how to use it.
We receive most of our permit submissions on-line, through a proprietary system that our town and a number of other towns in the state use. We do still receive some plans in physical format, though, and we have been logging them in using a paper form in a 3-ring binder. The boss has been wishing for quite some time that we could electronic-ify that ratty 3-ring binder. I had COVID-19 a few weeks ago, so I used some of my down time to cobble together a simple little database in Microsoft Access to replace the paper document log in the 3-ring binder. I have the basic database up and running. The town uses Office 2019, but they don't give us Access. (I don't know what version of Office they bought -- maybe Office Home and Business, which doesn't include Access.) I was able to persuade the IT guys to give us the Access runtime (it's free and it's from Microsoft, so the IT guys were all over it), and it works. Actually, that's probably a blessing, because it means that end users of the database can't stick their grubby fingers under the hood and muck up the inner workings.
BUT -- as I have said, I don't know anything about databases. What I have is a single table (no relational magic here), with a single data input form, a single query and report, and a second form that functions as a home screen from which the users can choose to either enter data, or print the report.
The boss likes it, but (naturally) now that he has seen it he would like it to be able to do more. One thing he would like is to be able to view the data from the query in the raw table form (like a spreadsheet). I don't know how to do that -- can someone steer me in the right direction?
Thanks.
