Introduction to Rehema School Prefects Electoral System

The KCSE 2019 Computer Studies project question is out. In fact, it has been out for almost two months as at the time of writing this blog post. I always compare each year’s project with the previous year’s. This year’s project is a little rigid compared to last year’s. There are not really many options when it comes to design flexibility. Anyway, as is the expectation every time, you are required to computerise the operations of an entity, the entity here being Rehema School, a day secondary school.

2019 KNEC changes to assessment of KCSE Computer Studies project.

Here are the most notable changes that candidates need to be aware of. These are welcome changes and you can contact me for further guidance on how to go about them.

1. The project’s assessment will have two key milestones, which must be completed by March 31^st and July 15^th 2019.
2. At the end of each milestone, the subject teachers are expected to upload candidates’ scores and the pictorial evidence (portfolio) on the project portal. Each candidate’s pictorial evidence should show the candidate’s name and KCSE examination index number. 
3. The first milestone MUST be keyed in by March 31^st and the second milestone by July 15^th 2019.
4. The council (KNEC) will monitor the project progress and authenticity of scores at different times in the course of the project implementation. The school and individual candidates will be expected to compile and maintain a portfolio (file) of evidence on the progress of the project work to be presented to monitoring officers.

What you need to come up with Rehema School Prefects Electoral System.

1. A database management system: This can be Microsoft Access 2007, Microsoft Access 2010, Microsoft Access 2013, Microsoft Access 2016 or Microsoft Access 2019. For those using Linux and Macintosh operating systems, Libre Office and MS Access for Mac respectively will do. I presume most if not all schools use Microsoft Windows. I recommend Microsoft Access 2010 or higher. I do my development in Ms Access 2010 so the end product is compatible in Ms Access 2010 and higher. Ms Access 2010 also has some important features not available in Ms Access 2010., not forgetting that Ms Access 2007 is more than a decade old.
2. Creativity: You need to be able to formulate how to computerise those manual voting operations at Rehema School. Some of those operations such need to be consolidated while some need to be eliminated.
3.  Solid planning: You have to visualize on paper how you want your Rehema School Prefects Electoral System to look like first before embarking on the design lest you will meet endless obstacles. Even with a plan, you will meet a few obstacles but you will be able to go back and make corrections if you have a plan. In this case, a plan basically involves coming up with the tables and queries you need. Some obvious tables include a students’ details table, a teachers’ details table, electoral positions’ details table and a classes’ details table..
4. Security: You can achieve this through password-protecting your database as well as regularly backing it up. Once you reach a milestone, I recommend you save two copies of your Golden Wall School Inventory System and proceed with one copy. This way if you face hurdles in design or something happens like accidentally deleting a table or a query, you can always go back to the other copy and proceed from there.

  Core concepts of Rehema School Prefects Electoral System Project.

1.      The ability to store (in tables) details of students, teachers, classes, electoral positions and electoral positions.
2. The ability to register and store contestants/candidates and their proposers & seconders from the students table.
3. The ability to vet the candidates/contestants.
4. The ability to vote for the candidates by the students’ body.
5. The ability to tally the results at all levels and determine the winners.
6. The ability to generate relevant reports.

HOW TO ENCRYPT AND DECRYPT YOUR DATABASE (PASSWORDS)

Password-protecting your database project guards against threats well known to you such as theft of the database or its objects such as tables, queries and forms by importation/exportation.

To encrypt or decrypt a Microsoft Access database you need to open it in exclusive mode.

WARNING: I recommend that you use a copy of your database in doing this as there is no remedy if you forget your password.

Encrypting your database

1.      Launch Microsoft Access

2.      Go to file and click on open as shown below

3.      Navigate to your database file’s location and select it. Click on the arrow next to the OPEN command to see the options such as Open, Open Read Only etc. Select Open Exclusive. The database will now open in exclusive mode.

4.      To encrypt the database, go to file and click on encrypt with password. The following window will appear. Enter your desired memorable password, verify it and click on OK.

5.      You may see this error message. Just click on OK. Your database is now encrypted. To open it you’ll need to enter the password.

Decrypting your database.

Immediately after encrypting your database, you can decrypt it because it is still open in exclusive mode. Otherwise, the steps to take are as follows.

1.      Launch Microsoft Access and open your database in exclusive mode (already explained above)

2.      Go to file and click on Decrypt Database as shown below.

3.      In this window enter your password and click ok. Your database is now decrypted. 

Encrypting your VBA code.

Your VBA code doesn’t have to be complex to necessitate encryption. Somewhere on this blog, there is a tutorial on how to add a real-time clock on your forms that uses a simple line of VBA code. There are many other simple ones out there that aid in simple functions such as opening your form to new record. Protecting your VBA code guards against exportation of your well-designed forms among other objects from your database therefore providing additional security. To the steps now:

1.      Open your database (you don’t have to open it in exclusive mode)

2.      Click on database tools on the ribbon and click on Visual Basic

3.      The Visual Basic Editor window will open as shown below. The DB I used for this blog post does not have code and that is why there are no objects.

4.      Click on tools > [your database name] properties to open the window below

5.      Enter your memorable password, confirm it, tick Lock Project for viewing and click ok.

6.      Now go to file > save. Your VBA code is now protected and you’ll need to enter the password whenever you need to edit the code.

How to add a classic go-to combo box to your project's forms

Introduction

A classic go-to combo box makes record navigation in forms a breeze. A user doesn’t’ have to use the next, previous, last record and first record buttons to navigate through dozens or even hundreds of records stored in underlying tables. If you have watched my videos on my YouTube channel, then you’ll notice that almost every form in my projects has this nifty combo box.

To navigate to a record all that a user needs to is to locate the record in the drop-down list and the record will be loaded on the form. Nonetheless, the go-to combo box is not a complete replacement of the aforementioned buttons; in fact, having a combination of both makes the user’s experience even much better.

The process

At this stage, you must have a form which writes data into an underlying table. Such a table can be a student details table with the following fields: StudentAdmNo, FirstName, LastName and Form.

If you create a form using the Form Wizard based on this table, it should look like the one in the image below. (extra formatting covered in this blog post)

     i.)            Open your form in design view and head straight to the design tab and select the combo box.

     i.)            Place the combo box on an appropriate place on your form. Once you place it the wizard below will be displayed. Select the last option.

      i.)            Pick the fields you want to see in the drop down list and click next > finish. Your classic go-to combo box is now ready.

     i.)            Lastly rename the label next to the combo box and save your form.