How do I make an Archive COA report that is identical to the COA for my active samples?

Information in this Article applies to:

• Aspen version 6.x
• Aspen version 5.x
• Aspen version 4.x
• Aspen version 3.5
• Conifer³² version 4.0

When you look at samples from the archive area on the Main Menu you are looking at samples that are in an archives.mdb file.  When you look at samples from the active area on the Main Menu you are looking at samples that are in the working.mdb file.  When you first open up program.mdb and click on the Tables tab you will see many table names.  Some of these tables have black arrows pointing to them.  The tables with the black arrows do not reside in program.mdb but are tables in working.mdb that are "linked" to program.mdb.  When you create an archive from the Utilities Menu – Transfer to Archive you are creating a new database with 10 tables that have the same structure as working.mdb.  These tables are:  SAMPLES, TESTS, TESTGROUPS, SUBMITTERS, MANUFACTURERS, Audit_Trail, QC_Pointers, QC_Samples, QC_TestGroups and QC_Tests.  After you select an archive (from the Main Menu or from the Utilities Menu) or create an archive (Utilities Menu) the system automatically links the tables from the archives.mdb to program.mdb.  Microsoft Access cannot have two tables linked with the same table name.  The working.mdb file is always the first database attached to program.mdb and the archives.mdb file is always second.  Therefore the tables in the archives.mdb when they get attached get renamed with a suffix of 1.  So you will now have a SAMPLES table and a SAMPLES1 table and so forth.  You know that the SAMPLES table is from working.mdb and the SAMPLES1 table is from archives.mdb.

If you have a report that you use in the active system that you would like to be able to print from the archive area follow these steps:

1. Get into Access via the LIMS admin icon and open the Main Menu.
2. Select an archive from the Main Menu
3. Do not close the Main Menu, click on the F11 key.  This will bring the program.mdb file in front of the Main Menu.  You should see your linked working.mdb tables and archives.mdb tables.
4. Highlight the report that you want to create an archive report of and perform a copy and paste.  Rename the new report so you know that it is an archive report.
5. The report that you copied has a record source associated with it that is using the active tables i.e. the tables from working.mdb.  You will need create a new record source (query) that uses the tables from the archives.mdb.3
6. After you finish creating the archive record source open your archive report and change the record source to your new archive query.
7. The last step is entering your new archive report name in the Report Names table.Open the Report Names table and type the report names exactly as it appears in the database ReportNames field and enter the type of report, in this case you would enter Arch COA

You are done creating an archive report that is identical to your active report.  Exit the database and test your new report.