attendance redeaux

[mpmsdan]

I was about to embark on an attendance (presence at school) database with repeating fields until I saw the discussions going on about how taking it relational is the way to go. I'm still thinking that a repeating field with 31 repetitions would handle it fairly simply and be able to total up tardies and absenses.

Is it that bad to head down this road?

[andygaunt]

Hi,

the bottom line would be do you want to report or search the information stored in the repeating fields.

Yes, you can get totals of repetitions, but if you want a report of who was tardy over a specific period, broken down by class, then you have no hope with repeating fields.

If you do then definitely create a relational database.

If you give us some more information, we can point you in the right direction.

[mpmsdan]

Thanks for responding. It was the Nbrown "repeating field" post that got me thinking. His/her db was a little more elaborate than I need. I think the relational way sound more thorough and scalable (I'm sure someone's gonna want to track it eventually) So, would it be something like this:

A student db with every kid which relates to:

A month db with months (from sept-jun) for each kid which relates to:

A days db with day for each of the kids month.

These would all be related by a student id. I'm not sure, I kind of get lost thinking about it.

[Fitch]

You probably don't need a "Month" database, just a "Days." The days can easily be searched and sorted by week or month or year when needed.

[mpmsdan]

Yeh, I'm the relationship is starting to clear up for me a bit. Would it be wise to split this attendance days by primary and middle school since we're talking about 175 school days X 240 kids. That's around 42,000 records! They won't be storing much info, but it still seems bulky.

[Fitch]

42,000 records that contain, what, 3 fields -- date, child id, and attended (and maybe a reason for absence?) -- should not be a problem.

[mpmsdan]

You guys are cool. I look forward to hopefully giving back some support in the future...