a script to generate records

[cardoza]

what would be the script steps for this problem:

lets say I select a item, and then I assign the qty of 5 to that Item, and after I run the script, I have 5 separate records generated for that item.

thank you.

[bcooney]

Why? This doesn't sound like the correct approach/design. Can you provide more detail?

[cardoza]

the reason behind it is this.

I have a salesman, and I give him a qty of 5 of a particular product, and I want to keep track of how many I gave him and also when he sells one product I want to enter a customer name of who he sold it to.

i imagined there is a better way of doing this, but all I could think of is generating one record for each item( even though it is the same type)

and then I just go in and enter the customer information one a time.

any guidance on a better way of doing this would be greatly appreciated

thanks.

[bcooney]

" have a salesman, and I give him a qty of 5 of a particular product,"

Do you have a table of salespeople?

Do you have a table of products?

On what type of transaction do you give him 5 products? Does this transaction have a corresponding line items table?

"enter the customer information one a time"

Do you have a customer table?

Do you have a table that tracks sales? Does it have a line items table? Can those line items relate back to the line items in the transaction that was used to "give" the salesperson the products?

[cardoza]

Do you have a table of salespeople?

yes I do.

Do you have a table of products?

yes I do

On what type of transaction do you give him 5 products?

this is one of the steps where I don't know where to start

Does this transaction have a corresponding line items table?

this is one of the steps where I don't know where to start

"enter the customer information one a time"

Do you have a customer table?

I don't have a table for customers, I just figured that I would just create a customer name field and enter names there ( this is where I might have gone off track)

Do you have a table that tracks sales? Does it have a line items table? Can those line items relate back to the line items in the transaction that was used to "give" the salesperson the products?

negative on both of these. I just don't know how to accomplish these 2 steps

[bcooney]

Yep, you need more tables in your system. Having the correct setup will help you tremendously down the road when you try to report on the data.

So, you need a table for the transaction where you give the salesperson a product. What do you think you should call this? This table should have a related table of line items.

Also, create a table for Customers. I'd like to remind you that you need to use an auto-entered serial number for each table to uniquely identify each record. So, in your Customer table, you'd have CustomerID (auto-enter serial number field, unique and not modifiable).

You need to study up a bit. Have you read David Katchel's White Paper for Novices ?