Help, my hair is on fire lol

[collins_jd]

Hi All,
I am so happy to have found this blog! Just a bit of background before i post in a forum. Self employed, Medical facility, Cash Pay, Recurring Payment Treatment plans along with other non recurring, Medical (by Rx) products. The company started small, my partner is the MD clinical brain and I am the business brain. For 7 years I managed to create excel spreadsheets to handle all recurring and non recurring orders, there are some complex variables involved. Each time we outgrew the sheets I blew them up and created bigger, better. At this point we have 6-8 staff working in the sheets. In May I had to start over as again the volume was really too much for the sheets so I spent almost 2 months recreating. The outcome was great but complex sheets however 6 out of 8 staff have little to no excel exp. so withing a couple days the chaos began and i realized i needed something much more bomb proof. Fast forward I decide on trying my hand at an Access Database program and I am that person that will google the dog snot out of everything to do things myself if possible before hiring help. I knew ZERO about Access. Opened the program and quickly realized this was not a simple intuitive program I could just willy nilly fumble through and figure out. I signed up for an Access MVP class and it has been extremely helpful. I am still doing the the lessons however I need this system up like yesterday. I feel I am close, but know I'm making mistakes in regards to database relationships and may possibly have too many tables. I need like 2-3 more forms / reports for it to be useable by all staff but am spending too much time trying to figure out, getting errors and things that were working fine are now not working. :-/
Went to my go to google the world over to find answers but no luck. hoping you all can help.

Signed,
Desperate and brain dead after working 15 hours days for the last 3 months of working on this project
JC

 

[Jon]

Welcome to the forums! We are the most active Microsoft Access community on the internet by far, with posts going back over 20 years!

To get started, I highly recommend you read the post below. It contains important information for all new users to this forum.

https://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/threads/new-member-read-me-first.223250/

We look forward to having you around here, learning stuff and having fun!

 

[theDBguy]

Hi. Welcome to AWF!

 

[jdraw]

Welcome aboard, collins_jd. I saw your other post before this.....

 

[MajP]

I wish you good luck and people on this site will save you hours of work. However I have to question this statement

I am the business brain

Now I know very little about business, but I know time is money.

15 hours days for the last 3. I spent almost 2 months recreating.

I cannot believe that makes good business sense. You could hire someone off this site and probably do this for 3-10K depending on how much is involved. And that would be a bullet proof application with the ability to grow in capability. This type of scheduling and billing application is pretty cookie cutter, or at least there are tons of people familiar with doing it.
I am not trying to be critical and know you can get all the help you need here, but I cannot see this approach being cost effective. At this point handing it over to a pro should be easy since what you have may do a great job of defining the requirement.
I also know in business that sunk costs are meaningless. Just because you spent a lot of time already should not cloud a decision to get help.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Got to say I second the recommendation made by MajP. Having been in your position once a long time ago, like... 14 years ago, fumbling around in Access can be frustrating. It works like a champ but the learning curve is extremely difficult. The problem is simple. Excel is flat-file oriented and doesn't help you very well when dealing with complex relationships between data elements. Access is a relational database where managing or exercising relationships among data elements is its strength. BUT to properly take advantage of that strength, you have to break away from what we call flat-file thinking. Yes, Excel CAN work in multiple dimensions, but tediously at best. Access has built-in abilities to simplify this.

The real pain for most people is visualize the relationships. It is a true paradigm shift to move from Excel to Access. Once you SEE the difference, Access becomes easier to manage. But the personal overhead of that visualization can be difficult.

Here in south Louisiana, we have a story about the guy who wanted to be a long-haul trucker. The normal course duration for training people to drive big rigs was advertised as taking 4 weeks. BUT they didn't take into account that before they could "learn him" how to drive like everyone else, they had to "unlearn him" how to drive Cajun style. By the time he got home from the school, his wife had started grieving and the kids had forgotten who he was.

 

[collins_jd]

I wish you good luck and people on this site will save you hours of work. However I have to question this statement

Now I know very little about business, but I know time is money.

I cannot believe that makes good business sense. You could hire someone off this site and probably do this for 3-10K depending on how much is involved. And that would be a bullet proof application with the ability to grow in capability. This type of scheduling and billing application is pretty cookie cutter, or at least there are tons of people familiar with doing it.
I am not trying to be critical and know you can get all the help you need here, but I cannot see this approach being cost effective. At this point handing it over to a pro should be easy since what you have may do a great job of defining the requirement.
I also know in business that sunk costs are meaningless. Just because you spent a lot of time already should not cloud a decision to get help.

LOLOL!! More than a fair question! Maybe I worded it incorrectly in my original post..... I may need to re read and amend it lol

Let me clarify.
I have in fact spent 3 months working on this project
and yes I've def been working 12-15 hours days....HOWEVER

I definitely have NOT spent 15 hours a day for 3 months solely on this program. I agree 1000% that would not only not have been a good business decision but a terrible use of my time. I've been working so many hours because we are busy, have multiple locations, office staff as well as a couple virtual staff. I do have an actual role and job in the company lol so I've done this on my off time, down time, nights, weekends....
I sound like a super fun lady eh? lol

Besides the above, I couldn't have gotten away with even if I wanted to. I am 100% sure I would have been hunted down by my partner, staff, vendors, patients, the cleaning people, and whomever else has my number lol

ok... all that being said. I would LOVE to find someone that could take what I've done and finish it for me. Anyone here know a guy? serious question! I have loved learning access.... and I will continue to learn and use what I have learned, but I do need this done sooner than I can deliver.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and give feed back!!

 

[collins_jd]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Got to say I second the recommendation made by MajP. Having been in your position once a long time ago, like... 14 years ago, fumbling around in Access can be frustrating. It works like a champ but the learning curve is extremely difficult. The problem is simple. Excel is flat-file oriented and doesn't help you very well when dealing with complex relationships between data elements. Access is a relational database where managing or exercising relationships among data elements is its strength. BUT to properly take advantage of that strength, you have to break away from what we call flat-file thinking. Yes, Excel CAN work in multiple dimensions, but tediously at best. Access has built-in abilities to simplify this.

The real pain for most people is visualize the relationships. It is a true paradigm shift to move from Excel to Access. Once you SEE the difference, Access becomes easier to manage. But the personal overhead of that visualization can be difficult.

Here in south Louisiana, we have a story about the guy who wanted to be a long-haul trucker. The normal course duration for training people to drive big rigs was advertised as taking 4 weeks. BUT they didn't take into account that before they could "learn him" how to drive like everyone else, they had to "unlearn him" how to drive Cajun style. By the time he got home from the school, his wife had started grieving and the kids had forgotten who he was.

LOL I got a real chuckle from your story and though I have never heard the term before, I do fully understand the "flat-file" term!
I know and have loved excel a long time. we have simply have outgrown it and cant do what I need now or to continue to grow. There is also the issue of staff with basic or no excel knowledge, who are using the fairly complicated sheets daily.

I started the Access journey May 3rd:
-I had, as I have done over the years, changed the excel sheets to accommodate volume and growth, which obviously made them more complex
-May 1st the "new improved sheets" (which i must say i loved and thought were beautiful lol) went live in MS Teams for staff to use.
-May 2nd I started looking for a better solution.

It is safe to assume May 2nd was not a good day lol not a good day at all

I can very much visualize the relationships. Unfortunately I'm just not experienced enough to achieve what i can absolutely visualize... and Access has been very clear with warnings of my many ambiguous relationships lol

I am actually happy and relieved that two of you suggested handing it off. I was serious when I asked on MajP's post....
Ya know a guy? with a truck? that can haul this load and take it off my hands? fer a few bucks? lol That's my best 52 year old Latin / Floridian / Southern jargon

Thank you for your advice!! Truly Appreciated!

 

[KitaYama]

but I know time is money

A lot of people have a wrong understanding of this phrase.
If one has something to do with his time to make some money, yes. Time is money. So instead of investing 1000 hours on writing an application, it's preferred to ask a professional to write the application. And meanwhile he can make money with the remaining time. It's cheaper. He pays a few bucks, and make money twice or 10 times of what he has paid. And as you explained it can be assumed Time is Money.

But, imagine someone has nothing to do with his time, or he can not use the extra time he has to make money. This person puts 1000 hours on learning a language and writing an application to do some kind of business. You can't expect him to pay someone to do it for him, just because they are better than him and it cost less. On the contrary, it's costing more. Because he can do it for free.
Instead of watching porn, or wasting time on social media, he is doing something constructive with his time, He's learning something, he's doing something not to pay others. Because he is free.
And in a business perspective, it's a way to save money, or not wasting money or in another word, making money with his time.

In another word, time is money only and only if you can make money with that time.
But if for someone like me with no ability to make money with his free time, then time is not money. it's only time.
And trying to do something constructive instead of wasting it on watching TV is not a sin.

Just my 2 cent.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

A lot of people have a wrong understanding of this phrase.
If one has something to do with his time to make some money, yes. Time is money. So instead of investing 1000 hours on writing an application, it's preferred to ask a professional to write the application. And meanwhile he can make money with the remaining time. It's cheaper. He pays a few bucks, and make money twice or 10 times of what he has paid. And as you explained it can be assumed Time is Money.

But, imagine someone has nothing to do with his time, or he can not use the extra time he has to make money. This person puts 1000 hours on learning a language and writing an application to do some kind of business. You can't expect him to pay someone to do it for him, just because they are better than him and it cost less. On the contrary, it's costing more. Because he can do it for free.
Instead of watching porn, or wasting time on social media, he is doing something constructive with his time, He's learning something, he's doing something not to pay others. Because he is free.
And in a business perspective, it's a way to save money, or not wasting money or in another word, making money with his time.

In another word, time is money only and only if you can make money with that time.
But if for someone like me with no ability to make money with his free time, then time is not money. it's only time.
And trying to do something constructive instead of wasting it on watching TV is not a sin.

Just my 2 cent.

Time is LIKE money. It is a treasure, ... the only thing we have on this Earth that is truly ours and nobody else's (unless we choose to share). The days of our lives are days we can only spend one at a time, no more, and when our inventory of days is gone, so are we. Time can be saved, spent, wasted, or... my favorite ... enjoyed. Time is NOT like money in this sense. All the money in the world won't buy you any more time. But money spent to finish a project sooner CAN help you to enjoy your remaining time more effectively.

 

[KitaYama]

Doc, what you say is beautiful. But not a single part of it is true.
Without money, you don't survive a single day, no matter how much time you have. No matter how you explain the importance of time.

What you say is true only in one situation. Watch this movie and you'll understand. It's a movie about a world that money doesn't exist any more and time has replaced it. You run out of time and you die. It's available on Amazon and Netflix.

To OP: Apologies for going off track.