Databases are all around you.
Have you ever waited at the doctor's office while the receptionist punched in your information?
Or asked a store employee to check their system for a special item?
Then you've seen a database in action. The truth is, they're so useful, you see them
all the time.
With Microsoft Access, you can manage your own database - to suit the needs of your business,
or maybe the company you work for.
"But what exactly is a database?"
Well, it's a collection of information - or data - that's stored on a computer, allowing
you to enter, access, and analyze it in a way you never could on paper.
Let's think about that.
Before computers, what sort of paper records do you think the doctor's office kept on file?
Certainly a list of patients and their contact information also their medical history,
and a list of past appointments.
That's how databases work, from the simplest to the most complex. They're basically a collection
of lists - not on paper, but on your computer, where programs like Access make it possible
to organize your data, make it searchable, and so much more. Let's take a look.
Say you're a hard-working amateur baker. You might decide to keep a database of all the
cookies you know how to make, and the people you make them for - your friends and family.
A simple database, because it only contains two lists.
If you were a professional baker, your database would contain more. You'd have products and
customers, and other things to keep track of, like prices, sales units, and a list of
orders.
"Does Access actually keep these things in a big, long list?"
Not quite. Instead, it uses tables (like the ones in Excel) to list things in a little
more detail. Take this example from the amateur baker's database.
It lists friends and family, but also important information like who has a nut allergy in
the rest of the table.
So. If a database is essentially a collection of lists stored in tables - and you can build
tables in Excel - why Access? Why do you need a database at all? Let's compare.
While Excel is great at storing and organizing numbers, Access is better at analyzing and
connecting other types of data;
for example, names and descriptions, or your friends and their favorite cookies.
The databases you'll be working with in Access can actually understand how different lists
and their contents relate to one another. We call this a relational database - for its
ability to understand relationships - and it's really what sets Access apart.
Let's think about what that means while we go back to our amateur baker's database, and
build a third list to keep track of batches of cookies and who they're for.
It's easy to see the relationship here - all I did was pull Dwane from this list, and Shortbread
from here.
Access can see and use that relationship too, but Excel can't.
All of these things are completely unrelated as far as Excel is concerned.
That means you wouldn't be able to pull from one list to another. Eventually, you'd find
yourself typing the same thing over and over, every time you needed to refer to Dwane or
your shortbread recipe, or Dad and chocolate chip.
In short, Access thinks more like you.
It recognizes that the items in these three lists are connected. That makes entering,
searching, and analyzing data so much easier - whether you have two lists or twenty.
Less to type, less to keep track of.
Even the most complicated tasks can be made simple and user-friendly once you understand
how Access and databases work.