Horizontal Continuous Forms

[Kedishen]

Hi

I am making a Student database, which includes an attendance register.

I would like to set the input form up to resemble how a normal paper-based register would look (for ease of use).

Name Week1 Week2 Week3...

All the names will be in first column and then in each column after will be a combo box with a list of mark codes for present, absent, holiday, sick etc.

Each course has a different number of sessions and each student will have a mark for EVERY session.

Is there a better way I can go about this or is it possible to make a continuous form repeat across rather than down?

Regards
Scott

[Stewart Ross]

...I am making a Student database, which includes an attendance register.
I would like to set the input form up to resemble how a normal paper-based register would look (for ease of use).

Name Week1 Week2 Week3...
...

Hi. It is not really practicable to mimic the paper attendance register in the way you describe. You would find it very difficult to prepare a generic data entry form which could accurately reflect the relationships between the underlying data, and the potential range of start and end times for each class. You need to consider how practicable it would be to set up any kind of form that involved so many direct and indirect relationships (such as academic year, course, course year, year group, subject, subject week, room, tutor, student, and time period).

Commercial systems print attendance registers in a standard grid-based format for lecturers to complete - but they don't try to mimic this approach for data entry. Attendance is simply entered one week at a time.

The cleverest approach to student attendance recording I've seen is in one major commercial system in use in the UK where users only need to enter absences or lateness. Attendance is taken as a default, as for most classes the majority of students do attend. In the best case, when there are no absences to record, the data entry operator simply presses one button to confirm that all students attended and the class register instance is updated accordingly.

By the way, continuous forms do not repeat horizontally.

Hope this gives you some ideas for ways forward.

-Stewart

[Kedishen]

Stewert,

Thank you for your reply.

Bit of a shame I cannot do it that way. Never mind though, I have another method up my sleeve.

Regards
Scott