Goodwill Community Foundation creating
opportunities for a better life
we've already looked at how tables store
information in a database but you're not
always going to be entering data
directly into a table much of the time
you're going to be using forms instead a
form gives you a more user-friendly
interface for entering data and they
make sure that the data goes exactly
where it needs to sometimes the data
just goes to one table but other times
it could be several different tables and
a form can keep track of that so you
don't have to right now we're looking at
the customers form that was created for
our database and this gives us an easy
way of adding or changing information in
the customers table the difference is
here we can just focus on one record at
a time and there are also some
specialized tools like drop-down boxes
and buttons for saving deleting and
printing we can use a drop-down box to
find an existing customer and we could
also type a last name to jump to a
record and when we click on the name
their information will appear in these
fields where we can then edit it I'm
just going to change this customer's
address now some fields may have a
validation rule that limits the type of
data that can be entered for example
here the state needs to be a two letter
postal code and if I try to type
anything else a window will pop up with
instructions on how to fill it out
correctly and I'll change this back to
NC and when you're done you can click
Save there's also a button to create a
new record which automatically clears
all of the fields so we can type in a
new customers information so if you
wanted to you could do most of these
things by editing the table directly but
the form is going to be a little easier
and faster to use now let's look at a
slightly more complex form and this is
going to let us do things that we really
couldn't do by just editing the tables
I'm going to open the orders form and
this is what the employees will fill out
when the customer places an order let's
just walk through the process of
creating a new order when you click new
order it clears all of the fields and
then you can choose the name of the
customer that's placing the order the
information in this list comes from the
customers table so every customer will
need to already be in the database
before they can place an order
and it automatically generates a new
order number
when you click on the pickup date field
a calendar button appears which makes it
easy to quickly choose the date that you
want and there are also a couple of
checkboxes for simple yes-or-no
questions later when you start creating
forms you'll be able to add these types
of special tools to make your forms
easier to use and this form has a field
where you can add notes if you want now
here's where this form is a little bit
different when you click add item it
opens what's called a subform and here
you can choose the item that was ordered
type in the quantity and then save and
close if the form doesn't update
automatically you can just go to the
drop down arrow below the refresh
command and select refresh then you can
add another item and you can do this as
many times as you need to until the
order is complete okay now let's take a
look at why forms are so important when
we place an order with this form one of
the tables that is modified is order
items now it would be very difficult to
edit this table directly for instance I
don't know what menu item 156 is and I
don't remember which customer placed
order number 7
but access can piece together the order
by looking up the correct records and
different tables so tables are sometimes
organized in a way that's easy for
access to read but difficult for a
person to read and that's why we often
have to use forms instead of editing
tables directly these were just a couple
of examples of forms and the exact
content and layout of a form will vary
depending on how the form is meant to be
used but the basic process of using a
form will generally be very similar and
it will be a combination of typing
information into fields and using
drop-down menus buttons checkboxes and
other tools