What Is Microsoft Access
A spreadsheet program is a terrific toolfor maintaining and calculating small sets of information.Microsoft Excel is easy to understand, create column names, enteryour data, create formulas, and you're on your way. Youcan sort, filter, and format the data quickly and easily.But spreadsheets are not ideal for handling hundreds of recordswhere you need to have 'one version of the truth' forsomething like a customer, a contact, or main 'thing'you need to track. It is very easy to introduce errors intoa spreadsheet, which then makes analysis, summing, and reportingvery challenging. The image below provides a quick exampleof several key challenges spreadsheets face. The value any database can provide is tostore related information in one place, and then let youconnect various different things together (sometimes called 'entities'in database speak).
You store one version of the truthfor any given thing, like a client, a DVD, or an order.Some of the major benefits to using a database are:. Fewer errors and inconsistencies.Maintaining one version of the truth for thethings you need to track minimizes the potential forduplication, errors, and inconsistent values.In the Excel example above, customer names, contactphone numbers, and product names are misspelled, transposed,and abbreviated in different forms.
Microsoft Access is the database program that is included with Microsoft's Office suite. While not as intuitive and user-friendly as most other Office programs, Access offers powerful features for creating databases and extracting data from them. Learning some basic steps will allow you to begin to make databases, tables, reports, forms and queries. Microsoft Access is a database management system that serves as an electronic filing system. With Microsoft Access, the user is easily able to modify any data within the database, produce reports from the database and submit queries about all information stored into it. Microsoft Access is a database creation program that allows for anyone to easily maintain and edit a database. It is suitable for anything from small projects to large businesses, and is a very visual program. This makes it great for performing data entry, as you don’t need to work with tables and spreadsheets.
Imagine tryingto create a report or graph in Excel that shows an accuratepicture of your sales or other key performance indicators. Higher productivity. Youand others working in your database need only changea single record and all other related things in yourdatabase will automatically 'see' the change.In our Excel example, you would need to change everyoccurrence of a customer's name.
Find andreplace wouldn't necessarily catch that a customer'sname is spelled six different ways. In a database,there is only one customer record to change. Everyother record (orders, contacts, etc) that relates tothat customer record will never need to change becausethey are joined to the customer. Security and Control. Databasesprovide a central location to store, secure, and controlyour data.
Microsoft Access includes the abilityto encrypt and password protect database files.And with users relying on a database rather than separateExcel spreadsheets, you can have greater control overaccess to the information. Better Decisions and Insight.Perhaps most importantly, a single source of truth ina standardized format means you can gain better insightand make better decisions by reporting and analyzingyour data in a database. Users are familiar withExcel charting, and databases like Microsoft Accesscan provide similar capabilities, while going beyondExcel with more powerful historical trending, aggregation,and query filtering. Easy-to-usewizard helps you create Access databases inminutes without being an expertEssentialfeatures for any Access applicationCreate stunningAccess dashboards without being an SQL guruVisit ourcatalogue for more products?Microsoft Access works in the same manner any database does, bystoring related information together, and letting you create connections(commonly called relationships) between different things.The relationships between two different things in MSAccess can bevery simple (such as a contact at a customer and the customer itself)or complex. In the example below, the blue boxes representthe major things we're tracking in our MS Access database tables,and the reports at right show how you can join the related informationfor analysis and reporting. Data is stored in Microsoft Accesstables (think of them as mini-spreadsheets that store only one typeof thing).
A table can have many fields (think of them ascolumns in your spreadsheet). Each field in a table can beset up to allow or prevent users from entering certain information(for example, you could say one field only accepts dates, anothercan only allow a user to enter a numeric value, while another letsthem enter anything they want). Once you have your MS Access tables, fields,and relationships set up, you can create data entry forms that usethose tables to store your information and later create reportswith the data. Microsoft Access forms are incredibly easy(and fun) to design with a wysiwyg form design tool. And youcan use MS Access forms to simplify data entry for users by groupingrelated fields together, and hiding fields they don't need toenter. The Microsoft Access Command Button Wizard even helpsyou to create simple buttons for your forms without understandinghow to create macros and Visual Basic.
Microsoft Access 2016
Imagine that your organization requires a simple method to create a list of those products that are currently selling above their average price. If you simply retrieve the product information table, fulfilling this task would require a large amount of sorting through data and performing calculations by hand. However, the power of a query allows you to request that Access return only those records that meet the above-average pricing condition. Additionally, you can instruct the database to list only the name and unit price of the item. So far, you've read about the concepts behind organizing the information in a database and retrieving information from a database. You still need mechanisms to place information into the tables in the first place. Microsoft Access provides two primary mechanisms to achieve this goal.
The first method is to bring up the table in a window by double-clicking on it. Then, add information to the bottom of the table, just as you would add information to a spreadsheet. Access also provides a. The interface allows users to enter information in a graphical form and have that information transparently passed to the database.
What Is Microsoft Excel
This method is less intimidating for the but requires a little more work on the part of the database administrator.