Taking the effort out of organising data (MS Access 2000)

Member Name: srtom

Product:	MS Access 2000
Date:	17/07/04 (559 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple to use, Cheaper alternative

Disadvantages: Not great for large amounts of data, Slightly unreliable

As a university student who does a lot of work with boring databases, I feel qualified after 3 years using Access by Microsoft to give a decent review of the product. Little did I know in my earlier years of learning data modelling and how databases were formed that Access was a relatively simple database software to use and the curses from years gone by are now meaningless.

The main functions and tasks of Access 2000 are as follows:
Making tables, producing queries, designing forms, executing reports with wizards, calculations and graphs, import and export, attachment, macros and Access basic.

Databases are characterised by fields, records and tables of data. In Access, you get an easy to use design view to create them or just use the wizard and tell it what you need from the table. Data is inputted through forms that are again very simple to use. Relationships between the tables are very important to reduce repeated data and it is very easy to create the 1:1, many to many or 1:m relationships here just by clicking and dragging on the primary keys to make them into foreign or composite keys on the next table. Queries, which are used to find out certain information about your data are again simply found by using the report or by producing the query yourself. Pseudo-SQL (Structured Query Language) can be used within the queries to produce the right results.

One tip that I can give you that has helped me a lot is to UNION the two queries on a report to get an output that corresponds to data from more than one query. The solution is to use an SQL construct called 'UNION'. Copy the SQL from one query and paste it below the SQL in the other. Be sure to put the word 'UNION' in between the two sets of SQL.
Also delete the semicolon at the end of the first query. When viewing the query from the database window you'll notice a different graphic than normal, two grey circles. This represents a Union query. Union queries cannot be edited graphically meaning than when you press the design button you'll be taken to the SQL view.

Reports are generated from forms or produced manually using the design wizard. Modules and a wizard that connects a database to a web page (ASP ? active server pages) are also included.

Access is perfect for the simple databases that require little effort and have few tables as it presents a clean and easy platform from which to produce them efficiently with minimal effort and fuss. Small businesses and home users should be interested in Microsoft Access because of its simple graphical user interface and help system that is intuitive, but you may need to purchase a help guide to Access to understand the program in more depth.

Other database software on the market include Oracle which is more suited to larger databases and similarly larger businesses to use as it is far more reliable when looking after the data. Although more expensive and more complex to use, Oracle is really needed for these large-scale enterprises as Access can?t do it the justice that it requires. Oracle also uses SQL (Structured Query Language) to produce the queries and the tables and such are made using code, rather than filling in a wizard on Access. This is far more complicated and you would need to be able to use Oracle to a professional standard for it to function properly, which is why Access has been so popular with novice users and small businesses.

Summary: