Schedule Maker

[Ekonomos]

Greetings!

I have a quick question to pose to everyone. I am trying to make a database program that makes a weekly schedule. However, since I am still a novice at Alphafive, I am wondering how to go about it.

Each week we have 6 positions to fill in our schedule. I will name those 6 position's M1, M2, S1, P1, A1 and A2. So that means I will have 6 different people each week assigned.
What I'd like to do is to be able to enter the person and then assign what they are capable of doing. IE: Some individuals can only do S1 and P1, others may be able to do all of the positions, etc.

So far I have set up a table to hold the people; we'll call the table 'people.' I then have another table to hold what they can do; this table we'll call 'abilities.' I have these two tables linked one-to-many by a field called 'ID.' I have also created forms to add and delete people and also enter each person's abilities. This all works great.

What I'd like is some direction in making the schedule. This is where it gets tricky. Each week there will be those 6 positions to fill by 6 different people. I want the DB to be able to read what each person can do and then assign them accordingly. There will be upwards to 12 weeks on a single sheet of paper.

Hopefully I described what I'd like to do well enough. I searched but couldn't find anything close to what I am looking for. Just to clarify, I am not looking for someone to do this for me. I'd just like some direction in how to do it.

Thanks,

[Stan Mathews]

how is it done now

In a recent, but totally unrelated, post today the advice was given to lay out how you would do it without Alpha and then try to make that happen in Alpha.

Would you
sit down with a calendar grid of some sort
choose the first position for a given day
look at the list of people and find the first one who had the needed abilities
fill in that name on the grid in that position
move to the next position and repeat?

Do you always want to assign the first person in the people table to the same position? IOW if the first person in the table can hammer, nail, and drill and the first position to be filled is always hammering, do you want that same person hammering away every day?

Just some thoughts for consideration.

Greetings!

I have a quick question to pose to everyone. I am trying to make a database program that makes a weekly schedule. However, since I am still a novice at Alphafive, I am wondering how to go about it.

Each week we have 6 positions to fill in our schedule. I will name those 6 position's M1, M2, S1, P1, A1 and A2. So that means I will have 6 different people each week assigned.
What I'd like to do is to be able to enter the person and then assign what they are capable of doing. IE: Some individuals can only do S1 and P1, others may be able to do all of the positions, etc.

So far I have set up a table to hold the people; we'll call the table 'people.' I then have another table to hold what they can do; this table we'll call 'abilities.' I have these two tables linked one-to-many by a field called 'ID.' I have also created forms to add and delete people and also enter each person's abilities. This all works great.

What I'd like is some direction in making the schedule. This is where it gets tricky. Each week there will be those 6 positions to fill by 6 different people. I want the DB to be able to read what each person can do and then assign them accordingly. There will be upwards to 12 weeks on a single sheet of paper.

Hopefully I described what I'd like to do well enough. I searched but couldn't find anything close to what I am looking for. Just to clarify, I am not looking for someone to do this for me. I'd just like some direction in how to do it.

Thanks,

[Peter.Greulich]

Each week there will be those 6 positions to fill by 6 different people. I want the DB to be able to read what each person can do and then assign them accordingly. There will be upwards to 12 weeks on a single sheet of paper.

Here are some thoughts off the top of my head:

So maybe you need a table called schedule where each records has a w/e date + the six position fields.

Maybe you need a 1:1 set, abilities-people

Maybe you need to scan the set in order to link or fill abilities-people to schedule.

Maybe you need to query the 12-week date range to print your report.

Maybe something along those lines...?

[Ekonomos]

In a recent, but totally unrelated, post today the advice was given to lay out how you would do it without Alpha and then try to make that happen in Alpha.

That is normally how I do things in Alpha. I will figure out what I want to get out of the DB, and then program it to make it work.

Would you
sit down with a calendar grid of some sort
choose the first position for a given day
look at the list of people and find the first one who had the needed abilities
fill in that name on the grid in that position
move to the next position and repeat?

That is pretty much what I'd do right there.

Do you always want to assign the first person in the people table to the same position? IOW if the first person in the table can hammer, nail, and drill and the first position to be filled is always hammering, do you want that same person hammering away every day?

Just some thoughts for consideration.

No, I don't want the same person to be hammering every day. I'd like the schedule to be completely random. For example someone may have to do something every week, but I'd like each week to be something different.

Thanks for the response.