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 info, like telephone book or mailing list.
But in Access you can do more than 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 use to keep a list of the customers' addresses, orders, and so forth.
Or maybe you need to keep track of how much each salesperson in the company sells each
quarter.
These are 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 that 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 enter data in a 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 mail promotional information to
the entire list, or sort 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 placed in a year?
Or what products he or she ordered?
If you add a customer's information each time he or she orders, you'll end up with redundant
data - 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 in Access because the information is arranged
differently.
Each time someone places an order with my company they give me their name, street address,
and phone number.
Instead of entering this information each time they call to place an order, I can enter
it once and place this 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 info here is a record in the table.
Each column is called a field.
So, First Name is a field, Last Name is a field, Street 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 Access and Excel differ.
In Excel I stored all my customer information and order information in the same spreadsheet,
so I could sort and filter data.
But in Access, I would place all my customer information in a 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 Info table that has fields for First Name, Last Name, Street
Address, and all the fields you saw in that 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 customer's 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 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 you have.
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 customer's information and the books they ordered at that time.
Access links the tables using specific identifiers called primary keys that we will 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 customer's 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.