Jessica-
VMS is an old DEC operating system. It runs either rDB, Ingres or System 1032 as a database. As I understand it, the operating system itself comes with a graphical user interface that allows a developer to build an application on top of one of those three databases. If you knew what the underlying database is, you might be able to extract the existing data (looks pretty important from your screen shots) to ultimately import it into a new Access database.
To rebuild the application, you first need to figure out what tables and fields you need. The first screen shot you posted seems pretty straightforward - a Victims table related one to many (or perhaps many to many) to an Incidents table. It's difficult to figure out whether Offense # in the Incidents table is a lookup to a particular type of crime or simply a Primary Key of the table. From the later screen shots, I would guess that it's simply a Primary Key. Your screen shot implies that there are more fields that we can't see.
The second screen shot gives you a clue about the details in the Incidents table, but the fields don't seem to match exactly what you can see in the subform on the first screen shot. It's unclear whether you can select multiple check boxes under Type of Crime. If that results in a single field per Incident, I would use a List Box in Access, but you have to figure out little details like this to be able to design the Access tables to support this. It appears that there may be up to five other tables related to each incident - one for each tab shown. It's unclear why there is a separate category for Co-Victim. It would seem to me that either you're a victim of an incident or not, there can be multiple victims per incident, and a victim might appear in multiple incidents. Ditto Offender information. And you would need to figure out whether Restitution applies to a specific victim or is related only to the incident.
The third screen seems to give you a clue about Services. The screen clearly says multiple services can be provided, but there's no clue about the underlying structure. Are there really individual fields for each check box (bad design), or does the data entry form somehow generate one record per check box? In Access, you could use a multi-value field, but I doubt that any of the three database systems support something like that, so the underlying table design is a mystery.
The final screen shot gives you a clue about the information about Co-Victims. The data appears to be the same as for Victims in the first screen. Are Victims and Co-Victims really separate tables? That doesn't sound like a good design.
ALL database application design starts with a good table design. You need to understand what the application does, what pieces of information it gathers, what subjects or actions it covers, and how those subjects or actions are related to one another. Once you have all that information (the screen shots help, but you'll have to dig deeper), you can then design tables in Access. If you can get that done, building the forms and reports to manipulate and display the data will be very easy. You might not end up with something that looks exactly like the old application. In fact, you may discover anomalies in the old design that you can fix with this new replacement.
I suggest you sit down with the person who uses this application and pick his or her brain about what the application is expected to do. Work on four simultaneous lists:
1) A list of tasks performed by the application - what the user expects the application to do
2) A list of all the individual bits of data that must be saved in the database
3) A list of the subjects and actions - associating each bit of data with one and only one subject or action
(The subjects and actions will ultimately be your tables!)
4) A list of how each subject or action is related to other subjects or actions.
We have already begun to identify some of the subjects and actions:
Incidents
Victims (and maybe co-victims)
Offenders
Services
Restitutions
The incident is the primary action.
Victims, Offenders, and Services are clearly subjects.
Restitution may be either a subject or an action or both (A generic restitution type table as a subject, and each restitution paid or performed as an action related to an incident)
Hope that helps...
John Viescas, Author
Microsoft Access 2010 Inside Out
Microsoft Access 2007 Inside Out
Microsoft Access 2003 Inside Out
Building Microsoft Access Applications
SQL Queries for Mere Mortals
(Paris, France)
On Aug 30, 2014, at 8:33 PM, hobackjessica@yahoo.com [MS_Access_Professionals] <MS_Access_Professionals@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Stuart, I have no idea about the data. I've never even heard of VMS before!
I did upload a PDF file of screen shots from the old database. I would like to recreate it as closely as possible. I would like each form to link together by the primary victim. I have built the forms - for the most part - but I'm not sure how to link them all together. Also, on the primary victim form in the screen shots there is a datasheet view of a query based on the victim listed above. This shows all of the incidents that victim is related to and has received services for. I'm assuming this is a subform (?) but I'm not sure how to make query results show in a subform.
I'm sure you can all tell from this email how far behind the curve I am and how desperately I need the help of the Access Professionals!
Thanks again for any and all help you can give me!
Jessica
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Posted by: John Viescas <johnv@msn.com>
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