MS Access Guide

The Northern Monkey

Anyone know of a good resource for Microsoft Access?

I need to create a database that I can import data in a set format, then export it into predefined reports/graphs/charts based on user defined criteria.

I know thats pretty vague, but I'm told it can be done. I just need to read something to get my head round it.

Daz555

What kind of data are you holding in the database and what sort of queries/manipulation are you planning.

Don't assume Access is what you need - you might be better off with Excel.

Google Access vs Excel and figure out what is best for your job.

bails87

I assume you're talking about (hypothetical situation, but hopefully it should translate to what you're wanting to do):

- User X imports the whole year's sales data for all the different widgets your company has sold all over the world
-Users A, B and C might then want to run a report to look at how many blue widgets you've sold, or how many have been sold in Asia, or how many you sold in July.

If so then it's definitely possible, but it might be useful to import the raw data to access, run grouping queries on it in there and then export it to excel and view it as a linked data connection through a pivot table.

I have to do this with stuff at work because there is simply too much data (about 40 fields per line, 60,000 -70,000 lines per month) for Excel to be able to cope with it. So you get Access to do the grunt work and then have Excel show the outputs.

Or you can set it up so each day/week/month you import the latest set of data and append it to the master data file. Then you run a query and get a series of dialogue boxes asking you what parameters you want to set for different fields. That's a bit 'faffy' though.