Adding Minibuses
From the Home screen menu click on the “open minibuses form”:
Once on this form, click on the Add record button and this will bring up a black form like so:
Adding minibus records:
- Beside the “Registration” label there will be a data entry box, type in the number of the registration plate in this box.
- Beside the “Make” label there will be a data entry box, type in the make/manufacture of the minibus in this box.
- Beside the “Model” label there will be a data entry box, type in the model of the minibus in this box.
- Beside the “Price per day” label there will be a data entry box, type in the price you wish to charge for hiring out the minibus, this field is already in currency form so you will only need to type in the numbers.
- Beside the “Number of seats” label there will be a data entry box, type in the number of seats the bus has in this box.
Adding a new Hiring
From the Home screen menu click on the “open Hiring form”:
Once on this form, click on the Add record button and this will bring up a black form like so:
As you can see this form includes two subforms which are the “customer subform” and the “hiring buses subform”. The subform to the right does not need to be filled out as the data from this form is dependant on the customer ID chosen.
Adding minibus records:
- Beside the “Hiring ID” label there will be a data entry box, this box does not need to be filled in as it is an auto number field which will be automatically filled out when the next field is completed.
- Beside the “Customer ID” label there will be a drop down box, when you click the dropdown button it will show you a list of customer ID’s with their names so that you can select the customer of who is hiring. If in a case there is a customer which has the same first name and surname then you can simply click the “Search Surname” button which will prompt the user to enter the surname and the postcode od the customer and will bring up all their details including their Customer ID:
- Beside the “Date of Booking” label there will be a data entry box, this field does not need to be filled in as it is an automatic date field which will use the date of the present day as a default.
How to delete data
Deleting a customer record
To delete a customers record simply click the “Delete Record” button as shown in the screenshot above.
A warning message will then appear as shown above asking you to confirm the deletion of the record, click yes if you want to delete the record otherwise click no.
The record will then be completely deleted from the database.
Deleting a minibus record
To delete a minibus’ record simply click the “Delete Record” button as shown in the screenshot above.
A warning message will then appear as shown above asking you to confirm the deletion of the record, click yes if you want to delete the record otherwise click no.
The record will then be completely deleted from the database.
If a message like this appears (shown in the above screenshot), then you will need to delete the records before hand from the “minibusoriginal” table.
To do this first open up the table located in the navigation pane to the right like so:
Once you have the table open, simply click on the record you want to delete, right click, and select the “Delete record” option like so:
Again you will be prompted with a warning message asking you to confirm the message so click yes like so:
Now if you attempt to delete the record from the Minibus form you should be able to do so without any error messages.
Deleting a Hiring record
To delete a hiring record simply click the “Delete Record” button as shown in the screenshot above.
A warning message will then appear as shown above asking you to confirm the deletion of the record, click yes if you want to delete the record otherwise click no.
The record will then be completely deleted from the database.
If a message like this appears (shown in the above screenshot), then you will need to delete the records before hand from the “hiringbuses” table.
To do this first open up the table located in the navigation pane to the right like so:
Once you have the table open, simply click on the record you want to delete, right click, and select the “Delete record” option like so:
Again you will be prompted with a warning message asking you to confirm the message so click yes like so:
You may be required to delete multiple records from this table depending on the buses hired out in the hiring record you want to delete.
Now if you attempt to delete the record from the Hiring form you should be able to do so without any error messages.
How to edit data
Editing a customer record
To edit a record on the customer’s form, simply click on a field, this will highlight the field as shown, then type the new data that you want the field to contain in the highlighted field and click away from field. This will automatically save the new data:
When editing a certain fields, only valid data will be allowed to be entered, see validation section.
Editing a minibus record
To edit a record on the minibus form, simply click on a field, this will highlight the field as shown, then type the new data that you want the field to contain in the highlighted field and click away from field. This will automatically save the new data:
When editing a certain fields, only valid data will be allowed to be entered, see validation section.
Editing a hiring record
To edit a record on the minibus form, simply click on a field, this will highlight the field as shown, then type the new data that you want the field to contain in the highlighted field and click away from field, in this case the field is a dropdown box so typing is not necessary as you can see the details of the customer ID to choose from. This will automatically save the new data:
As you can see in the above screenshot because I changed the customer ID this also changes the details in the subform to the right.
How to print data
When dealing with forms there is no real need to print off any of the forms as most of the data on a form is put into a report anyway. The report you will be wanting to print will be the receipt report, to print this report you will first need to navigate yourself to the hiring form and then click the “preview receipt” button on the record you want to print the receipt for:
Once you have clicked this button, the receipt will then load in the report view, once you have this report open you will then need to click the “file” tab on the top toolbar:
From here you then select the print option:
On this screen select the “print” option and an interface like this should appear:
On this interface, simply choose the number of copies you want to print and then click “OK” and your report will be printed.
How to save data
For all forms whether you are adding, deleting or editing a record, the form will automatically save after each of these actions so there is no need for any manual saving of any kind.
Dealing with error messages concerning validation procedures
When entering a new record for an email a common error you may come across is this:
The reason for this error is because the field has had a format check validation rule applied to it so that only data of the format “*@*.*” this simply mean that you will need to type to have the criteria of character then the “@” symbol then more characters then a “.” Symbol then more characters which in most cases will be “com”, “co.uk” or “net” but can be many other types an example of an email could be “[email protected]” as this email fits in the criteria of the format check.
Once a valid email address is entered this error message will not popup.
Another error message you may come across could occur when entering a date of hire which may look like this:
The reason for this error is because this field has a range check validation rule applied to it so that a date past 28 days into the future can not be entered. A valid record would be one that is between the present day and 28 days ahead.
How to use queries
The first query you will need to be able to use is the single table query, search for buses by price in ascending order, the reason for this query is so that if a customer wanted to hire out the cheapest bus then you can simply run this query to see which bus is the cheapest.
To run this query you will firstly need to have the Hiring form open and then click on the “Sort buses by price” button:
This will then bring up the query in datasheet view which will show the list of all the buses in ascending order of price like so:
The next query you will need to be able to use is the single table query with search criteria, search by surname and postcode, the reason for this query is so that if a customer forgets their Customer ID you can simply look it up from this query.
To run this query you will again need to be on the hiring form and this time click on the “Search Surname” button:
This will then bring up a parameter box which will ask you to enter the customer’s username and another parameter box will follow asking you to enter the customer’s postcode:
And as you can see this will then bring up the search results of the customers with the surname and postcode you entered with all their details:
The third query you will need to be able to use is the multi table query, search for available buses, the reason for this query is so that you can tell the customer when a certain bus is available. To run this query you will once again need to be on the Hiring form and this time click the “Search for available buses” button like so:
This will then bring up the list of buses being hired out, the date of the hiring and the number or days in ascending order so you can easily see when a certain bus is available:
The fourth query you will need to be able to use is the multi table with search criteria query, receipt, the reason for this query is so that you can open the receipt of the active customer from the hiring form. To run this query you will again need to be on the Hiring form and you will need to click the “preview receipt” button:
As you can see this will then bring up the receipt of the selected customer like so:
The fifth query you will need to be able to use is the parameter query, search for buses between two dates, the reason for this query is so that you can see which buses are producing the most revenue in a certain month. To run this query you will need to be on the minibuses form and click on the button “search for buses hired between dates” like so:
Once you have clicked this button a parameter box will then appear which will ask you to type in the start date and then another parameter box will follow which will ask you to type in the end date:
As you can see the result of the search have been displayed in a form like so:
The sixth query you will need to be able to use is the update query, the query itself consists of two separate query which are the discount query and the return query, the reason for this query is so that you can apply discount’s to bus prices for certain time period and then reset the prices to original when the discount period has ended. To run this query you will firstly need to be on the discount form, you can do this by firstly navigating yourself to the minibus form and then clicking on the “Open discount form” button like so:
When on the discount form, simply type in the percentage you want to discount the prices by, for example if you wanted to apply a 10 % discount then you would type in the value 10, once the value is entered click the “discount me” button, a message will appear confirming that you have discounted the prices, and you will see if you go back to the minibus form the prices would have been decreased by the percentage you entered like so:
To return the prices back to the original values you can simply navigate back to the discount form from the minibus form and click the “Return original prices” which will pop up a message confirming the change of prices back to their original prices like so:
And as you will see the prices have returned to the original values:
Disaster Recovery
In case of any sudden problems with the database or computer itself, a backup of the database will be needed, to do this follow these steps:
- Firstly locate the database on the desktop of your computer and right click and copy the file like so:
- Once you have copied the file, click on the “My Computer” from the start menu and locate your Memory stick or external hard drive like so:
- Once you have located your memory stick/external hard drive, double click on it to open and paste the file into a backup folder or on the memory stick/hard drive itself like so:
You have now successfully backed up your database.
If in worst case scenario where you cannot locate the database file on your desktop you can follow these steps to recover the database file:
- Go to “My Computer” again like so and click the “Search” icon like so:
- Select “All files and folders” option on the left hand side:
- Then type in “*.accdb” as shown in the screenshot below:
- This will then search for all database files and show the result for you to choose the file you want to open and you can then just copy and paste it back onto the desktop:
If the file is not found then you can simply copy the file from the backup file on the memory stick/hard drive and paste it back onto the desktop like so: