Beginning Access™ 2007 VBA

13.1. Design Specifications

Let's turn straight to the task of learning the requirements for the Project Tracker application. As discussed in Chapter 1, before you ever write a single line of code you should carefully plan your application on paper. Start this design process by determining exactly what the new application needs to do, who will use it, and what they are currently using. Go on a fact-finding mission to determine what needs the new application must meet. Many applications fail because coding was done too early and it was hard to retrofit changes. You may recall the house building analogy: If you wait until the first two floors have been framed to tell your builder you want a basement, you incur a lot of expense to get it at that point. The same concept applies in the world of programming. The more you plan up front, the better off you will be.

In the present case study, you have already talked to users and determined that each person needs a way to track his own personal projects. Corporate systems are in place to manage contacts, billing, and even projects for the company. However, the users are complaining that they need a simpler way to track their own little tasks in a coherent way. This system is not meant to replace the existing systems. The users will still have to maintain the projects in the master system. However, the personal details for each user's daily work do not need to be maintained in the master system, nor does management want them to be.

With ...