Lab: Update Job Status

There are two steps in updating job status.

The first step is to bring up the job record. This is done by opening, in design mode, the Job-Form done in the last lab, and adding to it a command button (click on the command button icon on the toolbox). For category, select record navigation. For action, select find record. Label it Find Job by Job Details, and give it a meaningful name. Switch to the form view mode. When you click the button, a Find and Replace box will pop up. By default, it finds a record by job id. If you want it to find a record by another job attribute, say description, then before clicking the button, put the cursor in the description field and then click the find-record button. This will cause the lookup to take place in terms of the description attribute:

The weakness of this approach is that it does not bring up a job record by any customer-related attributes. To remedy this weakness:

• Highlight the customer table and then press the “New Object: AutoForm” icon. This creates a customer form with a subform showing all the orders corresponding to each customer. Call this form Job-Lookup-Through-Customer-Form.
• Put a FindRecord button on the above form similar to the one described earlier. Once the customer is retrieved (say through last name), all of his/her jobs will automatically come up and the details of the relevant job can be read.
• Put an Open Job Form button on this form that will take the user to the related job form. Category: Form operations. Actions: Open form. Select the job form. Select Open the form and find specific data to display. Use customerid as the linking field. Give it an appropriate label and name.
• Put a macro behind the above button that would close the Job-Lookup-Through-Customer-Form.
• Open the Job-Form and next to the Find Job by Job Details button place a Find Job by Customer Details button that would take you to the Job-Lookup-Through-Customer-Form.

Once the job record is brought up, the quote needs to be recalculated (in case there have been any interim rate increases). This is done automatically by Access. Then job status needs to be changed to either active or rejected.

Deliverables:

Screen shots of the Job-Form and the Job-Lookup-Through-Customer-Form.