I have a database driven asp.net mvc3 web application. In it, a user can go to a page and enter data based on the completion of a task. I bolded the task because it is hugely weighted in this application. The selection of a task holds the referential link to a load of data. Currently (and under construction) the tasks are listed in a dropdown list.
For example, this might be what the user sees when they click the down arrow to expand the dropdown:
[ id number | name | description | date ]
[ 1 | Car | Repaired | 4/20 ]
[ 2 | Door | Lock changed | 4/21 ]
[ 3 | Fridge | cleaned | 4/22 ]
However, each of these have far more data linked to them such as who did the task, what type of tools were used, where the work was done, how long it took, and more. In total, there are four tables which need to be displayed with about 11 fields combined.
There is far too much data to properly display the whole task in the dropdown, and doing it as shown in the example gets really hard for the user to navigate once there is a lot of data.
I tried searching google and SE for a good way to display large amounts of data like this but was unable to find anything which fit this situation.
What is a good approach to take in order to show a collection of huge amounts of relational data while still allowing the user to distinguish the different sets of relational data?
Edit
The task is actually part of a larger data collection which will eventually be committed. In this sense, the task represents a large data set which has already been entered. There are only one-one relationships there.