Microsoft AccessDesigning and creating tables and populating data

OverviewWe will look at planning and designing tables in a Microsoft Access database, how to apply formatting to those tables and how to import data from various sources into those tables.

Goals

By the end of the class, you will be able to:

Understand the benefits of using a database (vs. spreadsheet)

Identify the purpose of your database

Plan the design of your database

Create tables and assign suitable properties to each field

Import or enter data from various sources into Access tables

Understand the purpose of a Primary Key

Identify and understand the importance of data relationships

Understand the benefits of using a database (vs.

spreadsheet)

In both applications you may:• sort and filter data

• enter sophisticated calculations to derive further information• generate reports in multiple formats

• use forms to enter data, mail-merge data to mass produce individualized mailing

• connect to external data without importing• import data from other file formats• set user permissions

• protect your files with passwords

Access vs. ExcelExcel

Excel files have a flat structure

the information is in a self-contained list called a worksheet or workbook (several lists)

the data can be linked to other Excel worksheets or workbooks, but it is not easily tied together

Excel is an excellent tool for analyzing data, producing reports, charts and graphs

Most people are familiar with it to a greater or lesser extent.

Access

Access has a relational structure

Tables contain different data, but there are fields that have something in common fields in other tables.

Good for storing large amounts of data

Users can easily run queries from that data

Creating reports can be cumbersome in Access, however, if they are to be utilized on a regular basis, it’s worth investing the time to create them

It may be easier to export data to Excel for analysis

Identify the purpose of your database

Purpose Statement

Create a purpose statement:

The student database will store information about grades, attendance, discipline, special populations, TAKS, STAAR, Edusoft, college readiness and STAR reading. This information will be used by teachers to address the individual needs of each student and plan lessons accordingly.

HELP, HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS?

Who will use this database?

What will I do with this information?

When will I use this?

Where do I get this data and how often is it updated?

Why do I need to track this data?

How will this data be used?

Plan the design of your database

The importance of planning your database cannot be underestimated. All of a sudden you have this new found tool that allows you to pull data easily and in a more meaningful format. You can dive straight in and start building ad hoc queries and adding multiple tables, but soon you will have so many queries or

tables that you cannot find what you are looking for, so you create more adding to the problem.

Look at the data you have and ask:

What format is the data in?

How much of this is duplicated?

What data is unique?

What reports or mailings do you want to produce?

What data do you need?

File FormatsAccess allows you to import data in these file formats:

Access

Excel

CSV

Delimited Text

ODBC

XML

dBase.

In some instances it may be easier to import data into Excel and manipulate it into a format that will make it more user-friendly in Access.

Things to RememberIf data is duplicated it affects how it is handled in

Access.

Unique fields could be ID numbers, social security numbers, or email addresses these always relate to one item as opposed to names which may be the same for several people in your database.

What do you want to get from the data, are you producing reports or mailings? What information do these need to contain?

What data do you actually need?

Create tables and assign suitable properties to each

field

Access field properties or data types

Group your data by subject

Use meaningful naming conventions that relate to that subject

e.g. Student rosters from the Pinnacle Grades report, you may choose the naming convention “Pinnacle_Grades_Student_Roster”,

This helps you to identify the source of the data and will be useful for future imports when you overwrite tables and need to know which report goes in which table.

Naming conventions in fields (columns)

It’s best not to have spaces in field names this can make it difficult if you choose utilize other components in Access such as Expressions and Visual Basic.

Use naming conventions that either replace spaces with an underscore or eliminate spaces and capitalize the first letter of each word. e.g “Student_Name” or “StudentName”.

FYI: In Access you do not need to worry about row names, rows are populated as data is entered in your fields.

Fields that have a relationship with a field in another table MUST have the same properties assigned.

Characters to avoid in field names

Spaces 

Periods (.) 

Colons (:) 

Ampersands (&)

Forward slashes (/)

Dashes (-)

Asterisks (*)

Question marks (?)

Semicolons (;)

Double quotes (")

Colons (:)

Single quotes (')

Exclamation points (!)

Dollar signs ($)

Pound signs (#)   

Percent signs (%)

Understand the purpose of a Primary Key

A primary key is a field, or a combination of fields, with a value that makes each record – each row in a table – unique.

Primary KeyEstablish the fields that make your records unique

Student ID

Social Security Number

Teacher ID

Choose these as you primary keys

Identify and understand the importance of data

relationships All tables must have at least one field that has a relationship with

another field in a different table

This is why Access is a relational database!

Plan your foreign keysA foreign key shares data with a primary key in

another table

Linking these two fields is called a relationship

Relationships will make more sense when you start building queries, for now you just need to know which data matches