I inherited a mess...

[INTP]

I inherited a fairly large Access database containing customer responses to a customer satisfaction survey. The creator of this database essentially used it as a large flat file. There is one table that contains one field for every field on the survey (example: date of service, time of service, type of service, customer name, account number, satisfied, neither satisfied not dissatisfied, dissatisfied, etc.).

I am being asked to do something with this to analyze customer feedback. 'The Boss' wants this in a cross tab format. She does not have a good reason for this other than she "wants it to look like an excel spreadsheet". My top priority is to gather all of the responses on each employee to see which employees need more training and in what areas.

I am rather new to the whole Crystal Reports scene. I did take a level 1 class through a training company about a year ago- but the class went so fast and was a six hour lecture-not 'hands on'... which was pointless.

I know that I should start breaking down the info into several tables... but where do i start? The file contains about 10,000 records and I want to make it as easy a transition as possible. Would this be better addressed in an Access forum?

 

[synapsevampire]

It is a good idea to cross post this in Access, but do them and the folks here a favor and post technical information when requesting it:

Crystal version
Access version
Example data (show the table and the fields with example data)
Expected output

You don't need to eleborate on how "messy" it is, your bosses motivation, or that you're new to Crystal, requirements will generally net results pretty fast.

Nobody likes doing specs or documentation, but every developer wants them

-k

 

[MrBillSC]

I would start with a simple columnar report sorted by employee, type of service. Then why not export the results to an excel spread sheet and let your boss have exactly what she wants. Then she can manipulate the data to her heart's content.

mrbill

 

[Danster]

I'd do a pivot table in Excel.
I reckon it would be just what the boss is after. If you're not comfortable with pivot tables, do some digging around in Excel's help and just jump in and try it.

If you really want to normalise the data go for it but really, you're just after an end result the boss is happy with.

cheers

Danster

 

[INTP]

Oh... I didn't mean to make her sound so bad. That was my fault. She's great actually... but enough of that I suppose.
Thanks for the posting tips.

Crystal- v9
Access- 2000
sample (if I can remember this...I left it at work)

id#|SvcDate |SvcTime|SvcType|Satisfaction|EmpID|EmpMngr
001|06/07/04|08:00 |C1 |Satisfied |2174 |Jones
002|06/07/04|08:00 |c9 |dissatisfied|6584 |Smith

etc...

There are many many more fields... but these are the ones that I need for this report. Svc = 'service' and EmpMngr ="employee's manager". I think the other fields are fairly self explanatory.

The desired outcome is to be able to report each employee's customer satisfaction results to their manager for either rewards or development identification. If I recall correctly there are about 24 fields in the table from the various questions asked on the survey.

I thought about the excel export option... but we are going to be looking at a lot of other data form these surveys. Are customers happier with certain products and services versus other ones. Do certain employees excel at satisfying customers while promoting one service over another? How does the satisfaction vary based on the proximity to certain holidays or days of the week? How does this relate to employee staffing? Is one manager better at developing employee than the others (based on their direct report's results)...etc. I just decided that, considering the relations, we would be better off creating a lot of separate tables instead of exporting and trying to figure them manually. Or we could hire a pro and get the results quicker