Unique ID Field
Apr 18, 2008
Hi all
I have been discussing DB table design with a colleague and we have a difference of opinion with regards to primary key ID fields .
My argument is that they should not be actual data but separate, that is an unique record identifier typically an autonumber type. I'm sure I picked this up from reading Access manuals.
My colleague's argument is: if the data contains a unique field, e.g. a unique project number in a table of projects (no project should be listed twice) then use the project number as the primary key. Her second argument is the byte size of an autonumber is 8 bytes whereas you can use a smaller data type to hold the project number thus saving space.
My opinion is that her first reason is flawed as it assumes no change to how projects are identified and that her second argument is irrelevant in today's Gb and Tb systems.
Without trawling through my Access books and the internet for opinions, I would like to know what your opinions are on this subject. I would appreciate good reasons which ever side of the fence you are on. I'm quite willing to be proved wrong and change my ways.
Cheers
Imperator
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Apr 14, 2008
Is there a way to format the random auto number to just be 4 digits long? Or does anyone know how I can programatically create an auto unique field? This number has to be stamped on a key so it can't be longer than 4 characters but it has to be unique. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Oct 18, 2005
Wotcha, folks.
I'm in a right pickle at work at the moment.
For the life of me I can't make an Access table have more than 1 unique field.
For example, I want a company's name and postcode to be treated as unique ONLY when they appear together.
So I can have many companies with the same name and different postcodes, but no doubles of the same company name and same postcode.
Does this make sense? How do I trigger a unique property when two certain fields match a previous entry.
I've searched on the net and in these forums, but i can't find help. Maybe it's the way I'm wording it.
So, sorry if this is incredibly straight forward, and I'm being a noob, but this is rather urgent.
Many thanks.
Jake.
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Aug 14, 2006
Hi, I'm crating this db:
Two tables, in one there are Items and services, in the other purchases.
1st table: ID - autonumber primary key
Product Name - Text
Quantity - Number
Barcode - Text
2ndt table: ID - autonumber primary key
Product Name - Text
Quantity - Number
Barcode - Text
Client - Text
Puchase Date - Date
How can I enter data to my 2nd table using unique fields (barcode, Product name actually ID in 1st table?) Problem Is Access alows only 1 unique key field in table and that is undertandable. Is there any way out in my situation.
barcode will be entered using barcode scanner it can be only text field but information like product name must fill in automatically, Product name must be drop down box if one wan't to select it manually then barcode should fill in automatically.
Please Attach your DB if you have time to look into this issue.
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Feb 20, 2007
Hi all,
I have been trying to incorporate an access DB in to our business for sometime, but keep coming up against the same issue. We have a numbering system for the jobs we do, which was invented many years ago and cannot be changed. It is in the format "month/Year/unique 3 digits" the 3 digits are sequential, i.e. 02/07/123 ... 02/07/124... etc. I will need this all in one field.
So far I have managed to get the month and year (easy enough) with the expression "=Month(Now()) & "/" & Right(Year(Now()),2) & "/"" Now I need to get the sequential 3 digits at the end, however, I am not sure of any way to do this and it has stumped many people. I have a field that is autonumbered, but don't seem to be able to add this to the end of the expression.
If any of you have any suggestions I would be greatful - bear in mind I am only a begginer at this.
Thanks in advance.
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Jun 8, 2006
Hi,
I have two tables:
tblOutTransmittals and tblTransmittedDocs. A document is sent with a transmittal document which the recipient signs to confirm that they received it. I've created a query that will show all the drawings/documents and the information about the associated transmittals.
What I want to do is show display records with a unique CCNum and preferably the one with the most recent TransmittalDate.
I've attached a screenshot and here is the sql:
SELECT tblOutTransmittals.CCNum, tblTransmittedDocs.DrawingNum, tblTransmittedDocs.RevisionNum,tblOutTransmittals. *
FROM tblOutTransmittals INNER JOIN tblTransmittedDocs ON tblOutTransmittals.DocID = tblTransmittedDocs.outTransmittalID
WHERE tblTransmittedDocs.DrawingNum="32-35554"
I've tried it using the DISTINCT keyword but that would only work if I'm returning one field. I tried Group By as well but couldn't get that to work.
Thank you,
RCurtin
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Jan 18, 2005
Hi all,
I'm fairly amateurish on Access so be gentle.
I need to ask Access to calculate a total number of records but only includes duplicate entries once.
For example: If the field entries were A, A, A, B, B, C, C, D
It would return a total of 4 (counting A, B, C & D only once).
Can anyone advise on how I can do this? My only alternative is to print the database out and cross out duplicates. Not the most interesting way to spend my afternoon.
Thanks!
Stu.
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Nov 12, 2012
I have a table as followed;
EmployeeID: PK
FirstName
MInitial
LastName
Company:FK
Department:FK
What I want to do is create a new field that automatically populates based on what is entered into the above fields.
Essentially creating a single field with unique data generated by multiple fields.
For Example if I entered the following informaiton:
EmployeeID: 1 (AutoNumber)
FirstName: John
MInitial: P
LastName: Doe
Company: FederalGov
Department:Test
The new field can be generated as followed: JohnPDoeFederalgovTest
What i plan on doing with this is making this "generated" field an index so no new duplicated records can be added.
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Dec 13, 2013
I have downloaded a contact template from the internet ready to go. There are few things I need to get rid off and make changes to.
One of the most improtant thing is making one of the field unique. For some reason, i can get to the design view. I open navigation panel and right click on the table, there is no such thing call design view on the menu.
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Oct 31, 2013
I have a material usage table that tracks material going into products...Oftentimes the same material will be used and multiple records will contain that material.
I want my query to return only records with unique material used. I'm clicking the "Unique Values" and "Unique Records" property setting but its not working.
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Feb 8, 2015
I have 4 fields in a table that when combined must be unique.I know you can setup multiple fields as a combined key, but I don't really need these to be the key (I will auto number a unique key). I just need to make sure the same combination of codes is not entered twice.Do I set this up as multiple key fields anyway?
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Feb 12, 2007
Hi. Back again with a badly designed number of tables that I inherited.
Anyway...
I have 20 tables each with an ID field and a dozen-or-so text fields. - (I planned on using a master report with sub-reports, but perhaps I am ahead of myself here.)
I need the user to enter the ID and a value which would only appear in one of the dozen+ fields for that record, in that table.
I set up queries with parameters for the ID and the desired text value.
However, when run, I get the correct client record, but also all of the fields for that record... Not only the field with the desired value.
Is there a 'simple' way to do this knowing ho wmany possible fields froma ll of the tavbles would have to be searched? And not all tables have the same field names!
Russ
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Oct 16, 2007
Hi,
I've been given a flat-file database to 'improve'. One field is simply titled 'Room' and refers to a room number in a school. I want to create a MakeTable query that will run through all the records and make a table containing one instance of each room number (for normalizing). Hope that makes sense!
Any help much appreciated,
Steve
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Mar 27, 2008
Hi
I have a table called SWAPS which contains information on each user and the different equipment he has been issued. Query at the moment contains 5 fields
Payroll, Surname, Firstname, Mobile No and Date sent.
SQL for this query is as follows
Select Swaps.PR, Swaps.surname,swaps.firstname,swaps.[mobile no],Max(Swaps,[Date Sent] as Lastdate
From Swaps
Group by swaps.pr, swaps.surname,swaps.firstname,swaps.[mobile no]
Order by swaps.pr;
Now when I run this I get the results I want by date so I get
123456 Smith Fred 0788411025 12/3/8
456789 West Bob 012555447854 13/1/8
So it correctly ids all the last dates for me as I want to see the latest issue date for that user. Now I want to add in another column to this query which contains the serial number of the equipment issued and heres where the problem lies. If a user has been issued more than 1 piece of kit, I get all the serial numbers irrespective of date. How do I get it to display the serial number for the latest date?
Thanks
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Apr 11, 2008
Hi Guys, I'm new here and fairly new to anything indepth with Access.
I'm using Access 2003 and have a table which has a number of customer records. The two relevant fields are the CustomerID which is a simple integer and OrderDate obviously this is a date field!
What I need (to link in with the other forms) is a query that will return one record for each CustomerID it should be the most recent OrderDate.
I've had a few attempts and done a couple of searches but can't seem to find exactly what I'm looking for. If someone could point me in the right direction I'm happy to play with sample code and read up on bits other people have done (I tend to learn better that way) rather than just being given some code!
Thanks for any help you could can provide.
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Oct 23, 2004
Hi I have a very simple table, with say 5 fields (all text). There is only 1 table. The first field is name, and I want to enforce its uniqness across all other table.name values. I am completely new to Access database and am not sure how to do this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Edin
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Jul 29, 2013
I have a DB with all my patients and (among other things) all their referral source.
I would like to print a status report of all my patients, grouped by the referral source, and fax them to the appropriate offices. Easily done with the report wizard.
What I need to know is, how do I create one report, but force a new page for each referral source?
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Jul 19, 2014
I have a report which is based on a query. The query combines information from TBLDwgReg and TBLDwgRegDtls. The unique field linking these two tables is DrawingNo. The query - QRYDtldDwgReg - is showing 99% of the information I want to see.
My problem is this - one drawing can be revised several times. I have my report grouped by IssuedBy and then grouped by DrawingNo. In the group footer for IssuedBy I want to count the number of drawings issued by a particular consultant. For example...the structural engineer has issued 17 drawings for a particular project but when I do a count it is returning a total 27 because some of those drawings have been revised.
I tried grouping in the query and counting the DrawingNo field there but that's not working either.
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May 2, 2014
Is there any way to force a field value to be unique and of a set length, but with exceptions?
Let me explain... I have a text field in my table called "employee_number" and this value is always one of the following:
NULL
an 8-digit number
the word "External"
What I want to do is to force that field to either be NULL, the word "External", or a unique 8-digit number.
Is this possible? Obviously I can't set the source field in SQL to accept unique values only but I wondered if there was any way around it at form level?
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Feb 12, 2014
I have a calculated field which consists of a few other fields concatenated, i.e. [field1] = [field2] & [field3] & [field4].
I need field 1 to be unique when its concatenated, but fields2-4 don't need to be unique. Is there a way to do this?
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Jan 9, 2007
Hi,
I wonder if someone can help with what must be an easy solution to this problem.
I have a table with 350,000 records, but without a unique identifier field. I just want a simple incrementing number field to become the primary key but dont know how to add this in. I cannot add an autonumber as there are two many records - it falls over.
Ive tried exporting it all to excel, but as well as being cumbersome, something went wrong and so I'm back to square one.
I think there must be a way to add an incrementing number either via a query or in VBA but I dont know how. Please can somebody provide a solution.
Thanks,
Adam.
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Jul 19, 2014
have a query which I would like to export to excel 2010 and would like separate files saved using a unique field called [Brokerage]. The code below exports the query however does not export separate worksheets as I am missing something perhaps the OutputTo function.
Private Sub Commission_Excel_Click()
Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim rs As DAO.Recordset
Dim MyFileName As String
Dim temp As String
Dim mypath As String
[code]....
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May 18, 2015
I am using the following to add a column to an existing table. How do I make this column indexed with no duplicates?
db.Execute "ALTER TABLE [BrandTBL] ADD COLUMN UPCGroupName TEXT;"
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Nov 2, 2014
I have a client database that has recently had multiple duplicate entries. I need to reduce or negate this erroneous activity. I have a client table where I record amongst others, the following;
key
[christian_name]
[family_name]
[dob]
......
I believe that to prevent duplicate entrie via form I have created an additional field called "unique" given it as a unique index which I want to have populated with the joined fields first_name & last_name & dob (IE johndoe01/01/90), and then as user enters a new client it wont allow a duplicate.
However I need to fill all the existing customers (3600+) with the relevant joined existing data. If I create an expression I can cajoin the fields in a select query but when I try to make an update query the same syntax comes up with empty fields.
select query sql that worked to show field ...
SELECT divers.christian_name, divers.family_name, divers.dob, [christian_name] & [family_name] & [dob] AS Expr1
FROM divers;
update query that was empty ..
UPDATE divers SET divers.[unique] = [christian_name] & [family_name] & [dob];
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Mar 5, 2013
To prevent duplicate records, I use multiple fields indexes, which worked fine until now. I learned that each "empty" fields are consider unique by Access, so not the best in an index to prevent duplicate records. I managed to have it worked using the default value property to give each "empty" records the same value.
Now my problem is that I have a date field which is optional, but I need to use it as a unique identifier in an index. I could again use a default value, but since it has to be a date, I find it confusing. I would rather have a default value of "No date specified" or "-" or even better, "". Unfortunately none of those works with date fields.
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Sep 20, 2013
I have a table - (Table A) that has 2 fields X and Y. I would like to write a query or script to make two new tables based on the unique values found in field X. In other words, all data where field X = 1 would be written to a new table called "1" and all data wehre field X =2 would be written to a new table called "2".I would like this done automatically.
Table A
Field X Field Y
1 a
1 b
1 c
1 d
2 a
2 b
2 c
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