Linking Two Tables

I have two tables in Access 2003, Master (Parent) and Hours (Child).
Currently they share a One-To-One relationship. I need a record to be created
in the Hours table every time there is a record created in the Master Table,
but when users don't enter a vaule in the Hours table, it won't generate a
record?

When I run a query that includes fields from both tables, it only accounts
for the records in the Hours table. For example, if I have 886 records in the
Master Table, and 86 of those records were not filled out in the Hours table,
well then I only get 800 records back in my query. So if I want to know how
many people have entered thier hours, sure 800 is correct, but I want to know
out of 886 only 800 have entered their hours.

I fear that I should not have created two seperate tables, and that the
Hours table and the Master table should be one big table.

On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:35:01 -0700, Gabe <Gabe.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

>I have two tables in Access 2003, Master (Parent) and Hours (Child).
>Currently they share a One-To-One relationship. I need a record to be created
>in the Hours table every time there is a record created in the Master Table,
>but when users don't enter a vaule in the Hours table, it won't generate a
>record?

One to one relationships are VERY RARE. Why do you feel that you need one?
What is in [Hours]? Does each Master record have one, and only one, forever,
value of this field?

>When I run a query that includes fields from both tables, it only accounts
>for the records in the Hours table. For example, if I have 886 records in the
>Master Table, and 86 of those records were not filled out in the Hours table,
>well then I only get 800 records back in my query. So if I want to know how
>many people have entered thier hours, sure 800 is correct, but I want to know
>out of 886 only 800 have entered their hours.
>
>I fear that I should not have created two seperate tables, and that the
>Hours table and the Master table should be one big table.

If each Master has only one Hours, then you're correct; but you can just add
an Hours field (or fields) to the Master table, join the two tables, and run
an Update query. The field will be NULL if there is no corresponding record in
Hours.

That said... you certainly do NOT need to create a dummy "placeholder" record
in Hours. instead, change the Join type in your query. Click on the join line
in query design view and select Option 2: "Show all records in Master and
matching records in Hours".

My guess is that you in fact should have a one to MANY (not one to one)
relationship; if this is a payroll or similar app, each employee will have
many work-periods with hours in each of them.
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]