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General discussion

Database for a newbie?

Jun 24, 2010 11:07AM PDT

Hello,
I am brand new to databases, but have been asked to create one for the volunteer centre at which I volunteer. They picked me because I hve strong computer skills, with this area being a total exception. They sugested that I use Open Office Base (I use a Mac so apparenty some of my options are limited). However, when creating a table you can not insert new fields to the right or left of existing fields and there are other annoying little details like an inability to wrap text (almost all fields are text based). Essentially I think the centre is looking for an easily serchable spreadsheet type of thing that can be sorted and manipulated more easily than in calc.
The fields that I am working with include:
Address, Province (I live in Canada), Name of the organization, Amount of award, Point person, Deadline, Whether self-nomineees are allowed
Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction as to what I could be doing?
I would prefer an open source soloution, but am open to other suggestions if they do more of what I am looking for.
Thank you!

Discussion is locked

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Re: database for Apple
Jun 24, 2010 5:59PM PDT

For a Mac, I would have a look at www.filemaker.com. It's not open source, and it's not free, but it's real database software.

Kees

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Roughly how many volunteers do you anticipate ?
Jun 27, 2010 1:00PM PDT

Sounds like CALC or Excel may be more than sufficient for something as as simple as you describe. And if it grows beyond, you can also import into ACCESS or Filemaker.

VAPCMD

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I think you're right about calc
Jun 27, 2010 1:28PM PDT

We anticipate about 150 volunteers for the next 6 months (hopefully) to grow to about 250 by this time next year. I think you're right and that Calc may be sufficient for the time being, because even though you can't easily querey calc, it can be imported and relevant entries could be found using the simple find tool. I think once we peak it might be a little harder to manage.
Thanks to both of you for your input, I looked into the flemaker programs, and downloaded a trial, but found myself having a bit of a hard time using it in terms of being able to see my full entries (no wrapping option, and sticky column widths). I bought a copy to deal with my home library though as I think it's the perfect solution for that.