Frank is right. This is probably a presentation (client) issue.

You could of course add some intelligence to SQL Server by adding the HTML formatting to a procedure or view.

For your first problem, I would think this is a presentation issue. A pivottable in Excel handles this issue correctly (I think).

If the UI does not take care of this,...

Have to agree to keep the fact tables separated and join all data using Virtual Cubes / Cube partitions.

You could try the Lotus Notes ODBC driver.

Don't know if you connect to the NSF file or the server.

Have to agree with Jonathan. Null can have an entirely different meaning from an empty string.

Just think about an integer column. In that case a NULL is completely different from...

Jonathan, thanks for clearing this up. Some good advice to remember.

BTW, if I ever need to administer a real DB, I will surely get some external help. I don't have...

Sorry to barge in without any deep knowledge. But doesn't the log get truncated when you perform a backup? Well, if the Truncate on checkpoint option is switched on?

If I...

I would think you need to selfjoin, returning something like :

Part    Item Class

----    ----------

1      ...

One solution could be to add a second 'width_new' column with the correct datatype, copy all data over, remove the original 'width' column and rename the 'width_new' column.

From BOL Alter Table subject :

quote:

---

ALTER COLUMN is not allowed if the compatibility level is 65 or earlier. For more...

Not sure about this, but access the SP from a Query in Access (using Procedure syntax). After that, setting it as the datasource of your report should be easy.

About the same idea that Jonathan allready gave. Just added the Group by, so you will get the summary for each user.

SELECT p.PKCol, COUNT(m.PKCol)

FROM tbMembers m

...

What has changed before this started occuring?

Don't know if this could be the problem, but do you use Autogrow on the TempDB or on the production databases?

Maybe set the 'increment'...

If you are talking about a huge amount of data in your history table, the additional table will give you a performance edge.

The view won't help a lot, I would...

Just reread your post. If you are talking about 'areas', you might need to store different units.

E.g. a table about volumes in gallons and one about lengths in millimeters.

Any governance...