Selecting 'canned' paragraphs for report..... How? 1

[jdmartin8]

I have the need to automatically create a report that will, based on certain calculations, include a predefined paragraph of verbage. I am not exactly sure first of all, where to store these 'canned paragraphs', and how I would have them displayed based solely on the result of a calculation between a couple of fields in a table.

Hopefully this is clear enough that someone can offer some help.

Thank you!

Jim Martin

 

[GingerR]

make a table with a memo field. store each chunk of verbage in here one time. include an ID field (Autonumber).

what kinds of calculations are they?

1) if you have ONE resulting calculation: say you will end up with Color = a number. say that a piece of verbage should be output depending on the color range. so then in your table you just made, put two new fields, ColorMin and ColorMax. put in the ranges that apply to each piece of verbage. then in your report, you'd compare your calculated color number to your color range in the table.

2) if you have MORE THAN ONE calculation that will affect which verbage you use, or if one piece of verbage could be output due to more than one combination of calculations, then you'd have a second table. say then you will calculate Color Number and Color Letter. you'd have a table tblVerbageCriteria:

VerbageID ColorNum ColorLetter
1 8 A
1 10 C
2 8 C
2 11 B

see what i mean? for sure have ONE table with unique verbage chunks. then depending on how many calculations are involved, make possibly a second table that houses the ID of the verbage chunk from the first table, and the criteria that will get it selected.

geez i hope i'm at least NEAR the right track here....

g

 

[jdmartin8]

Ginger,

Thanks for replying to my post! I was just about to give up, and then you answered it. You seem to have a great solution to exactly what I want to do. I am in the process of creating the additional tables now, and if you leave this topic in your 'notification' group, I will let you know my progress and pitfalls.

A star has been sent your way, and thanks again.

Jim

 

[jdmartin8]

Ginger,

I will try to expand a little on what I am trying to do. I have an application that gathers data from the field and then compares the data (water purity parameters)with min/max operating parameters. A report is generated, and if any of the recorded data items are out of spec, a paragraph is added to the report stating possible solutions for remedying the problem.

What I am trying to do is when the report is generated, it checks these values stored in the tblServiceHistory table, and formats the report accordingly.

Hopefully I have described my situation well enough that you can understand what I am trying to do.