There is a part of the current project I am working on that I need help with... in even thinking about designing. I must make a db that will monitor attendance of staff members. Every day, the time cards are pulled and they must be entered into the billing system I am building. How exactly would you think to construct a db of this sort? It can pull the employee info from the employee db by employee number... so that's set... but there have actually been many occasions where I have wanted to add this kind of info to a db and not sure how to go about it. I don't want to make a field for every day of the year... or a field in the employee file with every day of the year in it & the times they worked each day... too inefficient. I know I am missing something HUGE here, and I know this question is seriously naive, but I seriously need help thinking the right way here. Just a nudge should do it 'cause I've hit a brain block.

I do not want the user to have to remember all of the employee ID's, so I suppose I will need a script that will initially fill the db with the employee IDs add then some sort of way on each employee's record to record what days they have been in attendance. And that is the part I am having difficulty with. I want the user just to be able to cycle through the employee records and add the dates they were present & their hours... I want it to be super simple.

All input/advice would be appreciated.

TIA,

KC

I created a timesheet dbase...

Basically it has fields

date, employee, client, start time, end time, description, labor code...

each employee is assigned a password and when the dbase is opened a script is run which is

If[status(CurrentGroups)="Employee"

Enter Find Mode

Set Field[Employee, "EmployeeName"

Perform Find

End If

Sort

Thus, though the dbase has everyone's time...each employee who logs in sees only their data and the last time they entered something is displayed up top...

does this help??? It's pretty simple...and I can walk you through it if need be...

From a structure standpoint, this is exactly the correct approach and can't be over emphasized.

Don't have each record represent a day, week or year. This is "spreadsheet" thinking and will have adverse effects when you try to generate reports. Adding data should add RECORDS not FIELDS!

Make each timelog entry the smallest "atom" on time information you can. An employee/date/project/labor code/time increment is exactly right. It is much easier to add together small items than break up large items (a day or week as a record). These atoms of information can be displayed in matrix form using relationships.

-bd