Yeah, I think I'm getting most of it. The thing to remember about databases is that the data should be stored in the most efficient manner possible, which is not usually the most convenient manner possible for scanning the data. The idea is not the duplicate data across multiple tables. Enter data once, and then link to other tables as needed.
For your system, it looks like your parent table would have the header data for each team member as a separate record. The fields would include things like [Agent],[Oracle],[Phone], etc. I suggest putting [Schedule Days] and [Hours] into a separate table to provide a little more flexibility. Each record in the main table would also need a unique ID tag, a primary key, that would be used to link to data in other tables. This could be the employee ID, or a sequential number, or some similar unique identifier.
Once that is set up, then add child tables as needed, e.g., the attendance table, coaching plan data, upcoming training schedule, code info and so on. Each of the child tables can then be linked to a record in the parent table using the parent record's primary key, and only through that link. That way, there's no need to duplicate any other information across more than one table. If you do notice duplicate data fields, you can decide where the data should be to work best for you, and remove those fields from the other table. (Note, not everything needs to be linked through the primary key. For example, you can grab data from some tables, like the example I gave about the attendance codes, using simple lookups, much like using the VLOOKUP function in Excel.)
Once you got your tables set up, you get to the tricky part - designing the forms, queries, and reports to let you enter and read the data in ways similar to what you've been doing with the spreadsheets. Queries are the big thing. That's how you link the tables together to get the data you need in the order you want it.
Sorry if you already know some or all of this, or if some it is confused or confusing. It's been five years since I last had to think about most of this stuff, and putting some of the concepts into words gets a little tricky if you haven't used them in a while. Feel free to ask questions here or at my profile addy.
And... just to vent a little...
My main machine died on Saturday. Not sure yet if it's the power supply or the motherboard yet. I haven't had the time to really diagnose it. I do all of my school related stuff on it when I'm at home, but fortunately, I have everything course-related backed up to my trusty keychain thumbdrive. The laptop is less than ideal for working on this stuff, so I pulled the data drive from the main machine and installed it in my gaming machine. Now the gaming machine won't boot. Getting a disk error that tells me to give it the three finger salute and try again... to infinity. Le sigh.
Somehow I must've jangled a cable loose in there somewhere. Now I have two computers to fix. God help me if the laptop fails.
Sorry for the computer woes, DX.
I was having trouble with my main computer for a bit in that it would take 3-4 attempts to boot to finally boot up. It turned out to be bad memory. A bit of new memory and everything is good again. My BILs computer (which I built) also was having an issue powering up and that turned out to be a bad plug on a power strip.
Mac question. My Mac is starting to suggest updating to High Sierra, but I have heard that if your drive is encrypted it can be a very long upgrade? Anybody know for sure?
Is it a hard drive or an SSD?
Update on mine. Wasn't the power supply, so a replacement motherboard is arriving tomorrow. It's always tricky with motherboards. The machine is about four years old, so the MB is no longer available new. I could go with newer model, but then I would not only have to reinstall the OS, but also run the likely risk that the new board isn't compatible with Win 7 (or even Win 8 at this point), or even the CPU. So I ordered a refurbished board from Hong Kong. We'll see.
On the other machine, somehow the SSD forgot it was a system disk, and now I have to reinstall the OS. Not nearly as big a deal as on the main machine, because there are far fewer programs to reinstall. Should be a busy weekend.
Yeah, in all my years of building my own computers I think I've managed to only once upgrade a CPU without also replacing the motherboard and also usually the memory. It can be hard to change any of those without doing all three.
Using Linux is so nice for homemade machines. I hate the whole activation dance with Windows. My kids computers are homemade specials and have Windows and I sprung the extra few dollars to get retail rather than OEM Windows just to make activation smoother.
DX, on the second machine, what OS is it? I've had some luck with the startup repair option on Windows 10.
Daniel, it's Win 7. Already tried the repair option, which apparently made things worse, i.e., now the install disk doesn't recognize either of the SSDs in the machine as viable boot drives. <Shrug> I'll get it figured out eventually. I'm just a little out of practice.
