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Let’s start with the database design first. Click on the image to expand it.

37428-VolunteerDBDiagram

I hope I’ve accommodated all your criteria and keep in mind this is a simplistic diagram. You can add detail as needed.

First I would have an Event table that contains the basic info about the event. Next would be an Event Schedule. This is where you breakout your “sessions” whether it be one session, multiple sessions across one day, or multiple sessions across several days. I should have included a session description in this table.

You have your Volunteer table with each volunteer’s information and where all the action is would be in the Volunteer Schedule table. This is the place you pick the session and assign the volunteer to it.

I believe this design will allow flexibility in generating any sort of report that you require; Listing of Volunteers by event, listing of events by volunteer, lisitng of volunteers by session, and so on.

Thanks for the response rtanenbaum. No, I didn’t look at Yahoo but I was aware that they had a groups feature. One of my criteria is that no one in my group should be forced to sign up for anything. Optionally, if they want to get a Yahoo or Google account then that’s up to them, but I don’t want to force anyone to do that. Why you might ask? I have some stubborn folks, mostly elderly, that out and out absolutely refuse to join anything out of fear for their privacy. It’s mostly what they’ve heard on the news and nothing else based on reality. So I got to deal with that mentality. I would much prefer that they participate and receive our alerts and news broadcasts vs. slamming the door shut and not participating at all. So far the Google thing is working pretty good and I’ve got everyone moved over to it. At this point, I can’t swap horses in mid-stream as they say.

timmscot, One of the things that I liked about OneDrive when I was using it, was that I could store pictures and other documents for access by the members that elected to have a Windows Live account. I don’t see Google Groups having that type of function. In your group management do you use any sort of online storage for access by your members?

Ok, I think I’ve resolved my own problem. I created a Google group and was able to directly add all the email addresses for my members. An automatic email was sent out to the membership advising them of their new group membership. I set their subscription type as “Email” which means they will receive every message that is posted to the group. Secondly, no one is forced to become a Google member unless they want to access some of the web features of the group. We have a “public” group email address that each member can use to broadcast a message to the other members. All the messages are logged which is good for me because occasionally I have someone ask me about something that happened a couple of years ago.

It wasn’t made clear and I’m still learning about the Google Groups feature but I understand that only 100 members can belong to a group, that is unless you want to pay a fee. The other little nuisance thing is in the member listing. Unless you have a Google email address, each name is listed by the email address and not a user name. This gets annoying when someone has a cryptic email address and you have to remember who they are. Other than that I think we’re good to go.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

I probably didn’t accurately describe the requirements.

Joe, I understand I can create a “private” group email list using Outlook but what I need is a public email address that 40 something households can use to broadcast alerts and information to everyone that is subscribed to the list. I was able to do that prior with the MS Live Groups. That email address looked something like this; MyGroupName@Groups.Live.com. I’m not sure what Microsoft is doing with their Groups function but they won’t let you create any new groups and I’ve had some of my membership just vanish in thin air. You can say “I’m done with Microsoft’s Groups”. Anyway, I’m digressing. I’ve looked at Google groups a little closer this morning and I’m thinking that setting up an email list group with them will get the job done. I think I’ll sign up and run some tests. I’m still open for suggestions though. Thanks!

Not sure if a service like MailChimp would be of use to you. With less than 2000 subscribers, you can send up to 12000 emails per month, for free.

Hmmm, not sure. I need the central email address be available to all our members if anyone needs to broadcast an alert. How about Google Groups? I was looking at that last night. It seems that you can add non Google email addresses without them having to sign up??? Anybody have any experience with this?

Thanks!

In Visual Studio, a form itself does not have “exposed” docking properties… but you can make a form look like a control and have a parent form contain the controls. The good news is, controls are dockable.

Here’s a sample that I’m using in a project using one form as a control and I’m docking it in the parent form. You can create multiple forms and set the docking properties as you like. You may want to use a combination of docking and anchoring to achieve the thing you’re talking about.

Private Sub InitOverview()

Dim Overview As New frmDock

With Overview
.TopLevel = False
.FormBorderStyle = Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None
.Visible = True
.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
End With

Me.Controls.Add(Overview)

End Sub

At one time this was free to home users; https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/

You’ll have to read the fine print to see if it still is.

You can try Outlook Tools. It’s free.

ok, does that mean there’s no way to override the block natively within the Outlook application?

Edit: Nevermind, I found this article; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829982

It all depends on what you need to do with the data after the import. Arrays are very efficient in .NET and if all you need to do is “spin” through the array to arrive at some result then great. A Dataset will allow you to derive a DataTable and a subsequent DataView which will allow you to sort or filter the data. If sorting and filtering are beneficial for you to achieve the result then that’s the way I would go plus you could use a DataGridView to “preview” your data. There is a handy csv to DataAdapter function to quickly get the data into a dataset.

Thanks CLint! Are you saying that having the high resolution to begin with makes the picture better when resized? If that’s the case then it’s a no brainer. I do have plenty of capacity on my SDHC card so that isn’t really an issue. I guess my point was if the higher respolution doesn’t buy me anything when I resize and publish my photo in a forum or blog, then why even waste the space or endure longer transfer times just for the sake of having the largest file size possible. I see your point about professionals requiring the high res but the AW100 is hardly close to being in that league as it’s more of an adventurist’s type of camera being water proof and all. And I suppose having the larger image allows you to keep your options open if you did want to do something “professionally” with the photo at a later time.

Sorry about that. I was using VB6 to generate the examples and I also noticed a difference since I don’t have a Form_Open event in my programming environment. I will open your code in Access and bat it around a bit to see if we can make sense of this problem. Unfortunately I will be travelling most of this day so it will tomorrow before Ican take a look at it. Sorry for the delay.

I created a test application and this runs fine. Make sure that you use a ‘Set’ command when you… Set fMatchList.DBMatchList = cMatches and make sure the form has been loaded or created.

*** frmMain ***
Option Explicit
Private cMatches As clsDBMatchList
Private fMatchList As New frmMatchList
Private Sub cmdMatches_Click()
Set cMatches = New clsDBMatchList

’Set a property
cMatches.FilterOnDate = True

Set fMatchList.DBMatchList = cMatches

fMatchList.Show
End Sub

*** frmMatchList ***

Option Explicit
Private cDBMatchList As clsDBMatchList
Public Property Set DBMatchList(Value As clsDBMatchList)
Set cDBMatchList = Value
End Property

*** clsDBMatchList ***

Option Explicit
Private m_blnFilterOnDate As Boolean
Public Property Get FilterOnDate() As Boolean
FilterOnDate = m_blnFilterOnDate
End Property
Public Property Let FilterOnDate(ByVal Value As Boolean)
m_blnFilterOnDate = Value
End Property

The error you see is quite common when an object has not been referenced properly. Here’s what I think is happening; You are declaring your class in a command button click event;

Private Sub cmdMatches_Click()
[INDENT]Dim cMatches As classDbMatchList[/INDENT]
[INDENT]Set cMatches = New classDbMatchList
[/INDENT]
End Sub[INDENT]
[/INDENT]
When you do that then the scope (life) of that object is only as long as the click event itself. So by the time the other form gets the reference and loaded itself, the original instance of the class has been destroyed (when the click event ended). Try declaring the class as a form level variable, then you can instantiate it via the button click. Let me know if that works.

I know everyone has their own programming techniques and style but I try to keep classes as unique and independant objects that don’t know anything about the outside world. So if I were trying to tackle the problem as you’ve described I would pass a reference of classPerson to frmSelectAPerson instead of making classPerson know about the form. What if you had other forms that needed to use the methods and properties of classPerson? If you started loading up classPerson with references to all these forms then things would get messy very quickly and classPerson is no longer a “true” object and in the future it would not be reusable in other projects without modification. See my point?

So if you need to use classPerson briefly in a form, here’s what I would do.

In the form’s declaration section, declare a variable of the classPerson type.

Option Explicit

Private m_clsPerson As classPerson

’Create a public property in the form. Remember a form is also a class.
Public Property Set clsPerson(ByRef clsPerson As classPerson)
Set m_clsPerson = clsPerson
End Property

’Use the local instance of the class to perform whatever function is required.
Private Sub Command1_Click()
If m_clsPerson.FindPerson(“Joe Blow”) = True Then
‘Go do some stuff
End If
End Sub

’Be sure to clean up when the form unloads.
Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
Set m_clsPerson = Nothing
End Sub

So, after you invoke the SelectAPerson form, use the public property of the form to set a reference to your main person class object. Use the local reference to perform the required functions, then you’re done. Your main copy of classPerson should reflect any property changes that were invoked by frmSelectAPerson and you haven’t had to hack up classPerson to accomodate an outside object.

I hope this helps.
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