A spreadsheet like view of data

[Valdrin]

I'm having a bit of a problem. People have been scheduling panels for a convention using a spreadsheet, with the times going down the left hand column and 7 room names running along the top. They fill each cell with the name of a panel and cut and paste them around the spreadsheet until they get the final schedule. This worked, but it did not keep track of things like who was on which panel and other details.

So I created a solution that contained three tables, Events, Panelists and a join table. The database has made it much easier to keep track of things, but the people in question really miss the old spreadsheet view.

Is there someway to make a layout that would look like the spreadsheet?

Thanks in advance.

[Vaughan]

Yes. Read up on Cross-tab reports.

It can be a LOT of work.

[mr_vodka]

Lol. This subject comes up often... End users will have to realize that a databse is NOT Excel or spreadsheet...

Anyway, as Vaughn stated it cane be done but its more of an advanced technique. Here are some links to cross tab reports.

Shawn's Cross tab

Mikhail's cross tab

[Valdrin]

Most of the cross-tab report information that I can find is concerned with totaling data across the rows and columns, and just reading them them is making my head hurt...

I don't need to total the data, I just need the names of the panels to show up under the headers (rooms). Does anyone have an example similar to that?

[comment]

Your request is not clear enough. You said you had Events, Panelists and a join table. What/where are these headers, and where is the rooms information? Perhaps you should attach a demo file and indicate what's missing there.

[Valdrin]

Here is the bata version of the database and in example of the spreadsheet they like to use and I need to emulate.

ProgramingDBVerB5Copy.fp7.zip

[comment]

If you want a columnar display like that, you WILL need a cross-tab report, or something very similar. You should probably also have a table of locations.

In general, databases tend to have fixed, pre-defined columns - that's why they are not the best tool for displaying data dynamically in the horizontal direction. In your example, adding a new location would require adding a new column. While adding a new record to the Locations table, and assigning an event to it are well within what you would expect a user to do, adding a new column to the structure and placing it on a layout are structural changes reserved for the developer.