Do I need merge or table or database

[ia1980]

Hi
I want to make something.

Every week in our dept we have meeting where we sit down and enter data about clients. At present its a Word documents with text boxes in 2 columns
column 1
Box 1enter eg clients name etc - 5 fields
box 2 is about who is dealing with them 2 filelds
box 3 is about their previous bits - potentially 4 fields
box 4 is their requirement - 2 open fields (free text)
box 5 is box but a table in which you click one out of potential 10 boxes based on their performance

column 2
box a - our assessment 3 fields with number 0-9
box b - H office assessment but has date, their value and 3 fields like ours
box c - results (including date and little text about what was done)
box d - their performance status 4 fields
box e - our conclusion
box f - we leave empty and HO sends it to us (so has to be 1/3 of that column)

So first of all its not user friendly as if one is not careful the boxes move
second its a lot of moving around with mouse
third is not the most efficient system
fourth I like to move to the 21st century

So what I want to do is ? spread sheet or database where we have all the boxes and once data is entered we click something and a single A4 document comes out and we save it as PDF and put it in the file

Any help will be appreciated - I am not good with computers so a step by step guide will be very useful

Regards
IA

[jrkrideau]

Hi
I want to make something.

Every week in our dept we have meeting where we sit down and enter data about clients. At present its a Word documents with text boxes in 2 columns
column 1
Box 1enter eg clients name etc - 5 fields
box 2 is about who is dealing with them 2 filelds
box 3 is about their previous bits - potentially 4 fields
box 4 is their requirement - 2 open fields (free text)
box 5 is box but a table in which you click one out of potential 10 boxes based on their performance

column 2
box a - our assessment 3 fields with number 0-9
box b - H office assessment but has date, their value and 3 fields like ours
box c - results (including date and little text about what was done)
box d - their performance status 4 fields
box e - our conclusion
box f - we leave empty and HO sends it to us (so has to be 1/3 of that column)

So first of all its not user friendly as if one is not careful the boxes move
second its a lot of moving around with mouse
third is not the most efficient system
fourth I like to move to the 21st century

So what I want to do is ? spread sheet or database where we have all the boxes and once data is entered we click something and a single A4 document comes out and we save it as PDF and put it in the file

Any help will be appreciated - I am not good with computers so a step by step guide will be very useful

Regards
IA

It appears to me that you have a classic data base design and moving from Writer (shudder!) to it will vastly increase your productivity and, at the same time, greatly enhance your data security and data integrity.

I have a favourite url about using spreadsheets -- or the hazards thereof-- Spreadsheet Horror Stories but a spreadsheet is fantastic compared to trying to do what you are doing in a wordprocesing document.

I am not a database user so I am not someone to give detailed advice. However I'd suggest having a look around the data base forum for some of the major discussions of data base design-- posts by a number of regulars such as Sliderule, dacm and Villeroy are likely to be helpful.

I'd suggest getting a copy of something like "data bases for dummies" or "sql for dummies[1]" to get some idea of what you need and how to go about it.

From the OOo side OOo database wiki is a good place to start.

As a point about data security you should read some of dacm's discussions of embedded vs remote(?) databases.

[1] I'm about half-way through it and it is very helpful on the whole.