Task 8 : D2

Final Switchboard.

Making of the switchboard above.

Payment Form

Creating The Database

Tables

Go to the 'Create' Tab - Table Design - Then from there insert the relevant information within the fields e.g. Username, FirstName, LastName, etc... (These are the entities)

There will now be a table with the fields in them.
I made a members table to add data/members to so that they could join the film club. There were various other tables like the Payment table and the Films table which were used to track payments of members and tell the names of the films. I linked the tables by giving certain data realtionships. This was done so that the data had no duplications and would also be safe from being deleted.

Queries

To create the queries, go to the 'Create' Tab - Query Design - From there, a 'Show Table' window will appear. When working with a table that you're going to take information from and append into another table, you would select the table that you want to take information from first. You then go by the drop-down menus and you specify the table that you are extracting information from and which fields you want to take information from specifically.  After doing so, go to 'Append' and a new window appears. Append to the table that the information goes into and click 'OK', then click 'Run'. Sometimes windows come up but I accept them and 'OK' them all to append the information from one table to another.

Forms
Creating forms is done by going to the 'Create' tab - Form Design - Above the blank form design, the 'Design' tab should be open. To create buttons, I clicked on the 'Button' tool to click and drag the button on. the rest is explained above in the screenshots.

Macros
I created my macros in order for certain validation and processes to be carried out when completing a form for example; a sign up form - the validation being that if the specified fields are 'Null' or empty, the form cannot and will not apply the data in to the form, into the database. When putting the macros into play, on the window after you create a button, it allows you to run a macro or a query, etc... I ran a macro which was imbedded into the button so that if you clicked the button and the fields were not filled, I could make it so that a warning message tells the form user the error and that appending the data to the database intended becomes invalid and doesn't follow through.

Improvements

In the forms - Further improvements such as informing the user who fills in the form with a note next to the field that they fill in, for example; DD/MM/YYYY next to the DOB.
Outcome: This will inform the form user that the date format is Day/Month/Year
At the top there may be a heading or a note reminding the user that all fields must be completed.
Outcome: This would notify the form use that all the fields must be completed before being warned by an error message.
On the payments form, there could be a selection of prices (as buttons) for the Amount paid field.
Outcome: This would make it easier to choose the amount you want to pay.
Another improvement could be to change the colour of the form so that it isn't plain white. This would change the theme of the form a little so that the user who puts their data into the database knows that this is a 'Film Club' for example, importing an image into the background of the form which could be associated with a movie or another colour to brighten things up.
Outcome: The theme is erckognisable the the user as a film club database.

To reduce what the form user can do and tighten up security, I could make it so that the menus that are visible to the form editor are not visible to the form user to prevent deletion of data, modification to the tables, forms, macros, etc... 

Outcome: As above states.

I made my switchboard to make it easier to move between the Sign Up, Payment and Review Forms.

Outcome: Switching to different forms and navigating is made easier.

Task 7: P7

Test	Expected Outcome	Actual Outcome
Validation	The range check, format, restrictions, input mask should all work.	All function perfectly well.
Error Messages	After input of false values that don’t meet up to validation rules or the meet the specifications, the error message will show the message specific to which error has been triggered.	The error message for the empty fields appears and when the age is outside the range check, when a form is submitted, the error message for the user being too young shows up and stops any further progress with the form.
Error Capture (the stage before the error message)	That the error is noticed by the macro set to prevent validation rules from being bypassed.	Error messages for the validation came up indicating that the error capture macros worked.
Manipulation of Normal Data	The successful movement of normal data from a form to a table due to the use of a query.	The query worked and in result the data was appended into the members table.
Successful Entry	The data input into the sign-up form should be appended into the members table with all the specifications met for validation rules when submit.	The data was successfully appended into the members table and accepted through the submit button.

VALIDATION and ERROR MESSAGE - Example of range check

ERROR CAPTURE

SUCCESSFUL ENTRY

Part of task 5

Task 6

Task 5

P4

P2+P3

The validation checks that are present within the print screen above are the Range Check, the Input Mask, the Required field and the 'Allow Zero Length' Field. The range check is what stops people out of the age boundries from putting their information within the database. By entering the date you want the lowest age to be and the highest age you want to enter (which would have to be updated annually) - this is the range. It is shown as 'Between #01/01/1945# and #01/01/1996#. The input mask makes it so that the only characters that can be typed in are numbers for date format otherwise letters and punctuation would also be allowed and there would be no set format of setting the date of birth. The Required field is what would be the middle man between allowing the user to continue on without filling in the form and needing to be filled in before they can continue. The Allow Zero length field stops users from leaving a field blank so that they must enter information. There have also been format checks for the fields shown above. All the fields allow for text because they are all applicable for numbers and letters. DOB is not numbers because usually when you use numbers, you are going to calculate something so text also applies.

M2