How to Create a Microsoft Access Relationship Design (Step-by-Step)

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Modifying Referential Integrity

For purposes of illustration we are going to modify our business rules a bit. Let us say that a worker may clock time against a work order number even though the work order has not been entered yet. The foreman can enter the order later. Enforcing referential integrity would prevent this from occurring. We would not be able to enter a labor ticket that did not refer to an existing work order record. So, we need to modify the relationship between the labor table and the work_orders table to allow this. Right click on the relationship line between labor and work_orders.

Relationship Line

Select edit relationships to bring up the edit relationship dialogue. Clear the enforce referential integrity checkbox.

Edit Relationships Dialogue

Close the dialogue box. You will then see that Microsoft Access has removed the symbols at the end of the relationship lines. This means that referential integrity is not being enforced.

No referential integrity

I would NOT normally do this in a production database. I created this example to illustrate how the designer changes the relationships window diagram. Whenever you see a relationship line with no end symbols you know that referential integrity is not being enforced. This is true in the query design window as well.

Continue to page 4 - modifying join properties...


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