Karen has attended:
Access Intermediate course
Combine fields containing redundancy
I have imported data from Excel to Access and hence have a very wide spreadsheet with lots of columns (each a different project name) with 'x' marked to denote if affected. The training manual recommends combining fields - to build tall not wide (page 4 of Access Intermediate Training Support Pack). I therefore think I need to replace all the vertical columns and add a new record for each cell marked 'x' listing the detail (ie, project name).
There are a lot of 'x's across 400 rows and about 20 columns. Is there an easier way of combining the data or do I need to copy each line with an x in it into a new record and just add the project name field (I suppose I could use a look up table to make that easier) but think it will still take a very long time.
Thanks
Karen
RE: Combine fields containing redundancy
Hi Karen
The process you describe is called Normalization. Access includes a wizard to help automate this process.
Open the table you wish to normalize in Access and then go to Tools > Analyze > Table
You can find out more about this wizard on the Microsoft site at www.stl-training.co.ukhttp://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;292799[/url]
I hope this is helpful - do let us know if you have any questions.
Kind regards,
Andrew