BUS1MIS Management Information Systems

Semester 1, 2012

Access: Data Entry Forms

Week 7 Lecture 2

In this lecture the key ideas are:

• Without complete and valid data input, the quality of business information and decision making will be poor.

• Input screens should be designed to …….• Be appealing to look at and use.• Use minimum keystrokes.

Also included will be:

• An overview of creating an input screen in Microsoft Access 2010

To illustrate the ideas of input screen design we will use the Order Form lecture example from last week …..

CJC’s ImagesOrder Form

Order #: 1927 Order Date: 12/5/09

Customer Name: Liam Customer Address: Brisbane

Item # Item Name Qty Ordered

3720 Large Framed 3

2917 Small Unframed 6

1129 Small Framed 1

… and the database we designed to store the Order data.

Customers

CustName

CustAddress

Liam Brisbane

Kirsty Sydney

Orders

Order# OrderDate

CustName

1927 12/5/09 Liam

1928 13/5/09 Kirsty

1929 14/5/09 Liam

Items

Item#

ItemName

1129 SFramed

1800 LUFramed

2917 SUFramed

3720 LFramed

Ordered Items

Order#

Item#

Quantity

1927 3720 3

1927 2917 6

1927 1129 1

1928 1129 2

1928 1800 15

1929 3720 1

……… …… …

People are not good at entering data accurately and completely.

We can reduce the number of errors through …

•Setting data validation rules when we create our tables

•Effectively designing data input screens

Most DBMS packages allow rules to be set to ensure the validity of data entry.

The Access example sets the Order date to a value in this century.

Setting data validation rules when we create our tables

The example below shows the Validation text when an inappropriate Order Date is entered.

Effectively designing data entry screens

A data entry screen normally contains labels and data entry areas

LabelsData Entry Areas

ProblemsLabels should not be the field namesData Entry areas should reflect the amount of data to be entered

Effectively designing data entry screens

A more effective data entry screen would be ….

Remembering that data capture is best if it requires a minimum of keystrokes by a person …..

……. what further improvements could we make?

Default Values

If we can predict a value that will be commonly entered we can include it in a field as a default value.

For example, the Order date is likely to be today’s date.

Default Values

The data entry form will look like …..

Today’s date

Using the mouse rather than keystrokes

Combo Box

Because our database is made up of related tables we can use combo boxes to select values rather than having to type them.

Customer Name in the Orders table is a prime example

CustName

CustAddress

Liam Brisbane

Kirsty Sydney

Order#

OrderDate

CustName

1927 12/5/09 Liam

1928 13/5/09 Kirsty

1929 14/5/09 Liam

Relationship

Combo Box

Indicates a Combo Box

Combo Box

List generated from Customer table

Radio Buttons

Where the data in a field is of Yes/No type we can use Radio Buttons to reduce keystrokes.

I will add a Yes/No field to the Orders table

Note: I have used Text as the Data Type for the field.

Radio Buttons

We can use the Options group Wizard in Access to create radio buttons for the data entry.

Radio Buttons

In the Data Form view the radio buttons look like ….

Note: In the Order Completed field, 1 is stored to represent Yes and 2 to represent No.