I have a Primary Table with contact data of journalists and
publications. Each consultant in the office has his or her own table
with only selected (not all) records from the Primary Table. (Some of
them may use the same records). I would like to have the records
updated only in the Primary Table and have the consultant's tables
updated automatically when they are opened. (This is to ensure that
all use updated records). I have tried update query, but been
unsuccessful, don't think wit was designed for what I have in mind.
How can I do it?

Signature
impacter
Rick B - 15 Aug 2006 18:23 GMT
You don't.
Access is a relational database and normalization rules dictate that data be
stored once (and only once). You are trying to store redundant information
in one or more tables.
Each consultant should be using the "primary table" not copies of that
table. Now, they can limit the data they see by using queries to only
display the folks they want to see, but they would still be seeing the data
from the main table.
You would need to come up with a way to let the consultant select which
people are shown in their query. A common way to do this would be to add a
one-to-many relationship where you put a record for each contact and the
consultant number. In other words, consultant "John" would have a record
with his consultant ID and the ID for one contact. There would be one
record for each contact "John" needed to see. Consultant "Sue" would have
one record in that table for each contact she wanted to see, etc.
Then, in your query, you'd include the primary table, and the
"consultant/contact" table. You would filter the results so that each
consultant would only see his/her contacts.
There are other methods, but that seems to fit well with your scenario.

Signature
Rick B
> I have a Primary Table with contact data of journalists and
> publications. Each consultant in the office has his or her own table
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> unsuccessful, don't think wit was designed for what I have in mind.
> How can I do it?
Nick 'The database Guy' - 15 Aug 2006 18:32 GMT
Hi Imp,
I would question the advisablity of having a separate table for each of
the employees, especially if it is storing the same kind of data. I
would suggest that you made one table with the all same fields plus an
extra field which you could call employee, link this with your employee
table with a one to many relationship.
Then I think that many of your problems will be solved.
Good luck,
Nick
> I have a Primary Table with contact data of journalists and
> publications. Each consultant in the office has his or her own table
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> unsuccessful, don't think wit was designed for what I have in mind.
> How can I do it?