Databases and Speadsheets

Lesson Objective:

Understand the main features of database software

Learning Outcome:

Clearly identify the uses of database software and use the correct terminology when describing its functions.

Lesson 4

Question

What’s the point of today’s lesson?

Which software do we use?

Database…

Microsoft Access Spreadsheet…

Microsoft ExcelNB In the exam DO NOT mention specific software products like those above. Always refer to them as Database and Spreadsheet applications.

Table (FILE) structure

This is a

RECORD

Each Record contains at least one FIELD

This is the FIELD NAME

NB The exam board prefer to call these things FILES as and not Data Tables … try not to get confused

Key features of databases

Storing large amounts of structured data (using data types and validation)

Searching for items (queries)

Sorting items (queries)

Producing Reports

File and Key Field

Each table usually has a KEY FIELD. The Key Field is UNIQUE to

the record.

The Key Field is used to refer to the record in other data tables (FILES)

Two features of key fields

They are UNIQUE to the record

They are used to REFER to the record in other files

Example

PersonID Name Email Phone GenderSMIC001 Chris Smith cs@hotmail.com 0795551112 M

JONA001 Angela Jones aj@yahoo.com 0771234823 F

SMIC002 Charlie Smithers chsm@bt.com 0793816944 M

WILB001 Barry Williams bazw@kms.co.uk 0783746252 M

OrderID PersonID ProductID Date Dispatched?100 SMIC001 109 11/9/2008 Y

101 SMIC002 45 13/10/2008 Y

102 JONA001 89 16/10/2008 N

103 SMIC001 125 26/10/2008 N

Key Field

Key Field Foreign key when in another table

Flat file / relational database

A Relational database uses keys and foreign keys across the different data tables.

A flat file database does not make use of keys, the same data is often typed in repeatedly (in this example, the continent name)

Queries

Queries are used to limit the number of fields, the number of records and to sort in order.

[Continent] = ‘Europe’ AND [Population] > 40000000

E.g: