access 2007 is a program that allows you
to create and manage databases but what
is a database a database is a place
where you can store information related
to a specific topic it is an organized
collection of information you know like
a telephone book or a mailing list but
in Access you can do more than just
store data you can sort extract and
summarize information related to the
data for example if you own or work for
a business you might have a customer
address list that you used to keep a
list of customers addresses orders and
so forth or maybe you need to keep track
of how much each salesperson in a
company sells each quarter these are
just examples of types of data you might
need to keep track of the most common
question people have is why can't I just
use Excel to track the information well
in many cases you can on the surface
both programs may appear similar if
you've worked with Excel you know you
can intraday Tanna grid and store it
right you can do the same thing with
access but they are very different
programs so how do you choose first you
need to think about how much data you
have to store and manage then determine
what you want to do with the data this
is key in choosing whether to use Excel
or access let's use a typical customer
address list that a company might
maintain of their customers as an
example in Excel you can easily organize
your data so that you male perm ocean
elimination to the entire list or sorts
and find specific customers for example
we can sort and locate all the customers
that live in a particular state or city
but what if I want to see how many
orders a customer place in a year
or what products he or she ordered if
you added customers information each
time he or she orders you'll end up with
redundant data you know the same
customer entered several times in Excel
this is not easy to keep track of well
in Access it is I'm going to need to
teach you a little access lingo for you
to understand what access does it's easy
to keep track of your orders and access
because the information is arranged
differently each time someone places an
order with my company they give me their
name their street address and their
phone number instead of entering this
information each time they call to place
an order I can enter it once and places
information in an access table a table
is a list of related information in
columns and rows in this case it is
their basic customer information each
row is called a record so Bob Hope's
information here is a record in the
table each column is called a field so
first name is a field last name is a
field and address is a field and so
forth this looks a lot like the Excel
spreadsheet we looked at earlier doesn't
it well this is where it access and
Excel different and Excel I stored all
my customer information and order
information in the same spreadsheet it's
like it's sorts and filter data but in
Access I would place all my customer
information in the table information
about the books I sell in another table
and information about specific orders in
another table access allows me to search
I can easily find out how much Pete Moss
has ordered over the year or the most
popular book in a month you can do this
because access allows you to create
multiple tables and link them here we
have our customer information table that
has fields for first name last name
address and you know all the fields you
saw in
table we can also create another table
that contains information about the
books we sell if I look at the
information in these tables separately
they don't tell me much sure I can see
all my customers contact information and
create a mailing list or view a list of
all the books in the store but the real
power in Access is its ability to link
that data with access you can design
databases that allow you to do more with
the information you have because it
creates links or relationships between
the different types of data for example
I want to keep track of the items each
customer ordered each time a customer
places an order I can create a record of
that order that links to the customers
information and the books they ordered
at that time access links the tables
using specific identifiers called
primary keys that we'll talk about later
by adding this table and forming a
relationship with other tables I can now
do more with the data I can track a
customers ordering preferences or see
which book was most popular on a
specific day there is a lot to learn
about how databases work but the first
step is really to decide whether you
need an Access database or if Excel
meets your needs think about the
information you work with and whether
you might be able to use a database to
manage it