Converting multiple records to a single "Y" on a report?

Question

Okay, here's one for the experts. I have a table that's a many-to-one relation to each line of detail on my report. For example, a hard drive, Part Number 1234, might be assigned to multiple types of servers, i.e. it was assigned to 6 PE-C servers, 3 DCS servers, and 8 Blade servers. The assignment cross-reference table tells me the server PNs that the drive is assigned to. In the report detail for the hard drive PN, I have several categories, labelled: "PE-C", "DCS", "Blade", "EQL", etc. What I need to do for each line of main report detail (by PN), spin through the XREF file to find the PNs of the servers, then read each server for "Type". If even one server of a given Type (PE-C, etc) is assigned to that hard drive, I need the letter "Y" in the associated column, else a "N".
So it would look something like:
Part of the main Report Detail:
PN. . . . PE-C. . . DCS. . . Blade. . . EQL. . . CML
1234. . . . .Y. . . . . . Y. . . . . . N. . . . . .N. . . . . .Y
5678. . . . .N. . . . . . Y. . . . . . Y. . . . . .N. . . . . .Y
9012. . . . .Y. . . . . . N. . . . . . N. . . . . .Y. . . . . .Y
depending on which server types are assigned to the HD. There can be several server models under each type assigned to a drive, hence the many-to-one relationship.
So:
HD Master Table --> Server Assignment XREF Table -->Server Master Table
(HD Master: HD PN
Server Master: Server PN and TYPE
Server Assignment XREF: HD PN and Server PN)
I have absolutely NO CLUE how to go about doing this. Any thoughts or ideas would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks!!

Answer 1

Interesting. The problem is that the assignment is done through a stand-alone table, the Drive-Server-XREF table. That table only has the PN of the drive and the PN of the servers assigned to it. I would then need to take the PN of each server from that table, use it as a key to lookup the Server data, and pull the Type from that table. Then I would have to determine what the type is, and then assign a "Y" to a field (there would be something like 7 of these Y/N fields, one for each server type), depending on the type. Will your method work in that way?
So, for example, in the Drive Master table, we have ONE entry for PN 1234:
1234, somedata1, somedata2, etc
In the XREF table, we'd have something like:
1234,DX431 (the PN of the server it's assigned to)
1234, LT556
1234, AA221
1234, DP001
etc
Each of those PNs might be a different Type (or some of them would be the same type).
In the Server Master table, it would be:
DX431, somedata1, PE-C, somedata2
LT556, somedata1, Blade, somedata2
AA221, somedata1, Blade, somedata2
DP001, somedata1, DCS, somedata2
so you see, I would have to read across two tables to get what I need.