Microsoft Access Forms: Data in a Combo Box Control on a continuous form/datasheet disappears

Provided by the FMS Development Team

In a typical situation, you may have two combo boxes on a single form, such that the second combo box relies on the selection from the first combo box. For example, the first combo box contains a listing of all the states. When you select the desired state, the second combo box contains all the cities located in that state. There is nothing complicated with this situation. However, when you attempt to apply this to a continuous form or a continuous datasheet, the results may surprise you. What you will discover is that your selections will disappear.

As Microsoft indicates:

Microsoft Access maintains only one query recordset for a combo box rather than one recordset for each combo box in each record. When the criteria for the query that the combo box is based on change, rows that were selected in the other records may be eliminated from the recordset. As a result, the non-BoundColumn values are no longer available to be displayed.

What if you still want to have a continuous form or continuous datasheet? There is a method you can use to display the data in a continuous manner. Click here to download a demonstration.

What you will find in the demonstration application:

Form Object What is demonstrated?
frmSoftware - Continuous Form Shows a simple example on how the data disappears.
frmSoftware - Single Form Shows a simple example on how the two combo boxes work together on a single form.
frmSoftware, frmSoftwareDetails, frmSoftwareSub Shows a simple example on how to show the data in a continuous format without the data disappearing.

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Thank you! Thank you! I just finished reading this document, which was part of a link in the recent Buzz newsletter. I have printed it for others to read, especially those skeptical on the powers of Access and its capabilities.

Darren D.


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