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Creating Microsoft Access Database.

March 16, 2010 By: lilybird Category: Software

When you determine the information needs, it is vital to choose the right tool for the job. Microsoft Access is a very popular desktop database and is one of the Microsoft Office suite applications. You can create simple databases with Microsoft Access by learning bits of information from the Internet and special books. Just as like with any other software, there are bad and good ways to learn the product. Microsoft Access is perfect for novice user, because the program has a built in wizard, which helps to walk you through many important aspects of building a database. Even though the wizards are helpful and powerful, you might want to create custom systems and add more functionality to your database. At this point you will need to have more database knowledge and understanding than just knowing the basics. For example, when creating an invoicing system, it will have tax rates, package price, totals for unit price, sub total, etc. If you want to create such database system, you will need much more skills of programming and development and wizards cannot handle such tasks.

You might want a simple database for entering and storing the information or you need a complete integrated application. One of the benefits of Microsoft Office is that all its programs can relate and communicate with each other. If you want, you might create Access database, which operates on an overnight scheduler and then creates a list of today’s sales data into an Excel document. This spreadsheet could be then automatically emailed to the other company on the other continent or can be offered to accountants to look through the next working day. If you customize your MS Access database system this way, all these operations could be possible.

A lot of people find it hard to understand the database theory. Microsoft Access is a lot more than just entering and storing the data. Knowing how to design the database can help you prevent the possibility of duplicate data, allows you to relate tables together, selecting the right data types to store information and speed up the searches. You can also ask questions from your database and get answers. You will have to design a query to perform this, which will extract the necessary data from the tables.

It is also crucial to have well designed screens or forms for entering your data into your database. Form design is not exactly an art, but it still requires knowledge and understanding what looks good and what doesn’t. Another Access database skill worth learning is creating reports. If you need to create timely management information, you should be able to get information in the printed format, what reports are used for.

Even though it takes time to learn the Access database, it is definitely worthwhile. During the difficult economic times, it is beneficial for everybody to have as much computer skills as possible.





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