Split delimited entries into new rows in Access

Question

So someone gave me a spreadsheet of orders, the unique value of each order is the PO, the person that gave me the spreadsheet is lazy and decided for orders with multiple PO's but the same information they'd just separate them by a "/". So for instance my table looks like this

PO             Vendor   State
123456/234567  Bob      KY
345678         Joe      GA
123432/123456  Sue      CA
234234         Mike     CA

What I hoped to do as separate the PO using the "/" symbol as a delimiter so it looks like this.

    PO         Vendor   State
123456         Bob      KY
234567         Bob      KY
345678         Joe      GA
123432         Sue      CA
123456         Sue      CA
234234         Mike     CA

Now I have been brainstorming a few ways to go about this. Ultimately I want this data in Access. The data in its original format is in Excel. What I wanted to do is write a vba function in Access that I could use in conjunction with a SQL statement to separate the values. I am struggling at the moment though as I am not sure where to start.

Answer 1

If I had to do it I would

• Import the raw data into a table named [TempTable].
• Copy [TempTable] to a new table named [ActualTable] using the "Structure Only" option.

Then, in a VBA routine I would

• Open two DAO recordsets, rstIn for [TempTable] and rstOut for [ActualTable]
• Loop through the rstIn recordset.
• Use the VBA Split() function to split the [PO] values on "/" into an array.
• For Each array item I would use rstOut.AddNew to write a record into [ActualTable]

Answer 2

About about this:

1) Import the source data into a new Access table called SourceData.

2) Create a new query, go straight into SQL View and add the following code:

SELECT * INTO ImportedData
FROM (
  SELECT PO, Vendor, State
  FROM SourceData
  WHERE InStr(PO, '/') = 0
  UNION ALL
  SELECT Left(PO, InStr(PO, '/') - 1), Vendor, State
  FROM SourceData
  WHERE InStr(PO, '/') > 0
  UNION ALL
  SELECT Mid(PO, InStr(PO, '/') + 1), Vendor, State
  FROM SourceData
  WHERE InStr(PO, '/') > 0) AS CleanedUp;

This is a 'make table' query in Access jargon (albeit with a nested union query); for an 'append' query instead, alter the top two lines to be

INSERT INTO ImportedData
SELECT * FROM (

(The rest doesn't change.) The difference is that re-running a make table query will clear whatever was already in the destination table, whereas an append query adds to any existing data.

3) Run the query.

Answer 3

In Excel, try this:

IF(ISERROR(FIND("/",A1,1))=TRUE,A1, Left(A1, 6))

In the cell next to it, put something like this:

IF(ISERROR(FIND("/",A1,1))=TRUE,"", Right(A1, 6))

This will break out your PO's into 2 columns. From there, write a loop that creates a new record where appropriate.