I am designing a spreadsheet that will be used to monitor incidents
involving youngsters and when contact has been made with their parents /
guardians in relation to incidents. I am having difficulty in organising my
info though, as I don't want the user to scroll along across the spreadsheet
and so want the info to appear on screen without having to scroll. Having
said that, there is loads of info and so, I am wondering the best way to go
about it. I will need the following details:-

- Surname
- Foreame
- Date of Birth
- Telephone
- Address
- Telephone
- School
- Incident date
- Incident location
- Incident details
- Was contact made with regards to incident? (for this, a dropdown menu
listing "telephone, letter, visit"

Likewise, I want the spreadsheet to autoformat should the same Surname AND
Forename appear twice in the list.

Any suggestions? I played about with the idea of using comments in the
cells, however as it will be used by multiusers, would possibly need to make
the spreadsheet more user-friendly.

Now, having played about with the above, there is just far too many columns
to fit on screen at any one time.

"Jumbo's Chippy" wrote in message
...
I am designing a spreadsheet that will be used to monitor incidents
involving youngsters and when contact has been made with their parents /
guardians in relation to incidents. I am having difficulty in organising my
info though, as I don't want the user to scroll along across the
spreadsheet and so want the info to appear on screen without having to
scroll. Having said that, there is loads of info and so, I am wondering the
best way to go about it. I will need the following details:-

- Surname
- Foreame
- Date of Birth
- Telephone
- Address
- Telephone
- School
- Incident date
- Incident location
- Incident details
- Was contact made with regards to incident? (for this, a dropdown menu
listing "telephone, letter, visit"

Likewise, I want the spreadsheet to autoformat should the same Surname AND
Forename appear twice in the list.

Any suggestions? I played about with the idea of using comments in the
cells, however as it will be used by multiusers, would possibly need to
make the spreadsheet more user-friendly.

Now, having played about with the above, there is just far too many
columns to fit on screen at any one time.



You are about to use the wrong software for this project. I love Excel, but
a database like Access is really the way to go. Shall I elaborate on the
reasons?

I also believe that Access is the most suitable software for this project,
however my works IT dept don't support Access and it is not installed on our
IT systems at work so it's a no go


"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"Jumbo's Chippy" wrote in message
...
I am designing a spreadsheet that will be used to monitor incidents
involving youngsters and when contact has been made with their parents /
guardians in relation to incidents. I am having difficulty in organising
my info though, as I don't want the user to scroll along across the
spreadsheet and so want the info to appear on screen without having to
scroll. Having said that, there is loads of info and so, I am wondering
the best way to go about it. I will need the following details:-

- Surname
- Foreame
- Date of Birth
- Telephone
- Address
- Telephone
- School
- Incident date
- Incident location
- Incident details
- Was contact made with regards to incident? (for this, a dropdown menu
listing "telephone, letter, visit"

Likewise, I want the spreadsheet to autoformat should the same Surname
AND Forename appear twice in the list.

Any suggestions? I played about with the idea of using comments in the
cells, however as it will be used by multiusers, would possibly need to
make the spreadsheet more user-friendly.

Now, having played about with the above, there is just far too many
columns to fit on screen at any one time.



You are about to use the wrong software for this project. I love Excel,
but a database like Access is really the way to go. Shall I elaborate on
the reasons?

Questions:

1) What database products *do* they support? I believe it's possible to use
Excel as the "front end" for certain databases. Sort of like a "viewer" for
more elaborate data stored elsewhere.

2) By "do not support", do you mean they won't assist you if you run into
problems? Or....???

3) "not installed" isn't a reason. It can be installed.

4) Could this project be critical to the operation of your enterprise? If
so, you might want to explain to someone that if done with a spreadsheet, it
will become such a burden that people will quickly stop using it. I can
explain further, but answer to the first two questions, above, would help.


"Jumbo's Chippy" wrote in message
...
I also believe that Access is the most suitable software for this project,
however my works IT dept don't support Access and it is not installed on
our IT systems at work so it's a no go


"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"Jumbo's Chippy" wrote in message
...
I am designing a spreadsheet that will be used to monitor incidents
involving youngsters and when contact has been made with their parents /
guardians in relation to incidents. I am having difficulty in organising
my info though, as I don't want the user to scroll along across the
spreadsheet and so want the info to appear on screen without having to
scroll. Having said that, there is loads of info and so, I am wondering
the best way to go about it. I will need the following details:-

- Surname
- Foreame
- Date of Birth
- Telephone
- Address
- Telephone
- School
- Incident date
- Incident location
- Incident details
- Was contact made with regards to incident? (for this, a dropdown menu
listing "telephone, letter, visit"

Likewise, I want the spreadsheet to autoformat should the same Surname
AND Forename appear twice in the list.

Any suggestions? I played about with the idea of using comments in the
cells, however as it will be used by multiusers, would possibly need to
make the spreadsheet more user-friendly.

Now, having played about with the above, there is just far too many
columns to fit on screen at any one time.



You are about to use the wrong software for this project. I love Excel,
but a database like Access is really the way to go. Shall I elaborate on
the reasons?

By the way, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm attempting to give
you the benefit of 15 years' worth of data management experience, so you and
your organisation don't march yourselves off a cliff. I've seen this happen
too many times, in situations just like yours.

Doug,

I am actually a police officer and so, my police force won't pay for the
licence costs etc... Likewise, in the United Kingdom, there is a hell of a
lot of red-tape in relation to the use of databases in police forces and the
info that they contain. So, I am trying to sneak around this and hopefully
use a spreadsheet

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
By the way, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm attempting to give
you the benefit of 15 years' worth of data management experience, so you
and your organisation don't march yourselves off a cliff. I've seen this
happen too many times, in situations just like yours.

Ossifer....err....officer:
I understand the license costs. The bit about databases is probably an
overgeneralization, in a legal sense. Whether you stored names in Excel,
Word or Access, the same privacy issues would apply. I doubt that a court of
law would care about the specific software.


"Jumbo's Chippy" wrote in message
...
Doug,

I am actually a police officer and so, my police force won't pay for the
licence costs etc... Likewise, in the United Kingdom, there is a hell of a
lot of red-tape in relation to the use of databases in police forces and
the info that they contain. So, I am trying to sneak around this and
hopefully use a spreadsheet

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
By the way, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm attempting to
give you the benefit of 15 years' worth of data management experience, so
you and your organisation don't march yourselves off a cliff. I've seen
this happen too many times, in situations just like yours.

"Jumbo's Chippy" wrote in message
...
I am designing a spreadsheet that will be used to monitor incidents
involving youngsters and when contact has been made with their parents /
guardians in relation to incidents. I am having difficulty in organising my
info though, as I don't want the user to scroll along across the
spreadsheet and so want the info to appear on screen without having to
scroll. Having said that, there is loads of info and so, I am wondering the
best way to go about it. I will need the following details:-

- Surname
- Foreame
- Date of Birth
- Telephone
- Address
- Telephone
- School
- Incident date
- Incident location
- Incident details
- Was contact made with regards to incident? (for this, a dropdown menu
listing "telephone, letter, visit"

Likewise, I want the spreadsheet to autoformat should the same Surname AND
Forename appear twice in the list.

I understand the issue, but I don't understand what you mean by "autoformat"
if their are duplicates. What do you visualize happening?

This is a situation which database software handles with grace. (Sorry -
couldn't help saying it again!)



Any suggestions? I played about with the idea of using comments in the
cells, however as it will be used by multiusers, would possibly need to
make the spreadsheet more user-friendly.

What's so UNfriendly about comments?


Now, having played about with the above, there is just far too many
columns to fit on screen at any one time.

In Excel, click on Help. After it loads, click on the Answer Wizard tab. In
the search box, type the words "window split" without the quotation marks,
then click Search. On the right, you should see these results:
View different parts of a worksheet at the same time
What do you want to do?
View two parts of a sheet at the same time

Keep row and column labels visible as you scroll

The first choice may partially solve your problem, although with the amount
of data you're trying to store, nothing will help completely. What you could
do is design more than one type of split window, program them into macros,
and attach the macros to buttons at the top of the sheet. Then, users could
just click the buttons to see different views of the data. And, with a sheet
you already have, try clicking View, Zoom, and playing with the numbers to
bring more cells into the screen area.