Access Database Tutorial

Using a  Microsoft Access  database provides a rich set of tools and features that users at all levels tend to chug away entering data, running reports and build new objects and give little time (if any) to some basic housekeeping including the very basics of backing up database files. There are various strategies and methods that can be applied to your  Microsoft Access   database and this blog post will highlight some of the options for you. Backing up your database should be practiced for obvious reasons, but this should also be applied with good failsafe measures too when restoring or recovering lost or corrupted data sets (which can happen from time to time). Is there a high-level and technical skill required here? Of course not, it just needs a good plan, applying some common sense and implement simple strategies – whether you are a large corporation or small medium sized business! Take from the following options below and even considered using multip...

Microsoft Access Database : The mindset of the VBA programmer From my new VBA book due out soon, here’s an extract about the mindset of the  Microsoft Access  database VBA programmer… We need to start by establishing a frame of reference as to what we should expect when we are writing VBA code. Consider the scenario where you command a child to “ open the door .” Think about all the individual actions that it takes to accomplish that one statement. The child has to approach the door, align the hand with the door knob, move the hand and grasp it around the door knob, and then twist and pull the door knob while swinging the arm in an arc motion. We don’t have to command each specific step, and indeed life would be very tedious if we constantly had to issue commands at such a micro level of detail. However, somewhere along the line, the child had to learn what it meant and all the steps in the process to open a door. The child didn’t have to be told for each step and pr...

Microsoft Access Database , like with many of the other Microsoft applications is very versatile and can be a valuable asset for businesses (of all scopes). However, unlike MS Word and MS Excel which are normally used in the workplace for the day to day and general running of the business work flow and then can be also used to support MS Access at a level that complements other systems, Microsoft Access Database is the kind of application that takes office applications to the next level and can be used in various ways depending on the type of business and its needs.  If you are regular visitor to this site or have used this application, you will know Access primarily used to store information; data in a structured manner. While in most cases fort small to medium businesses, a stand-alone or shared database is manageable and can even be scaled up and can be connected to something like  SQL Server or...

With the most recent versions of  MS Access 2016 , it no longer offers support for  Access Data Project  (ADP) files but for the more seasoned releases it will still continue to support ADP’s. End-users will find it imperative to learn about the alternatives they could use when planning to update the application. Before recommending any options, there are certain basics you need to understand first. Why Access is never again supporting ADP ? The primary reason ADP will never again be supported by Microsoft Access is due SQL Azure will need to under go substantial changes to support ADP file formats. Even though ADP’s are of great use when working with SQL Server on-premises, that may not generally be the situation. Noting this, Access has quit supporting ADP’s altogether. It has simultaneously launched an application that can be used for creating web-based Access applications which likewise utilises SQL Server as well as on the cloud. Future of ADP and its subst...

A memo field can store a huge quantity of information, allowing up to 65,536 characters, with different choices. In the most recent release of Microsoft access database, it can store up to 1 GB of characters and enables rich text formatting. However, it is often advised to avoid the use of memo fields for grouping in Access. Memo Fields In the 2009 edition of Microsoft access database and including the recent version, there was a bug in which the memo field would show incorrect and erroneous characters under specific circumstances. If the user used the‘ GROUP BY ’ query on a memo field or if the query contains a JOIN on un-indexed records, the memo field would display incorrect results. Microsoft Access would just show random characters in place of the contents of the given memo field. Microsoft access database fundamentally truncates the memo and the most widely known factors that cause the truncation are aggregation, uniqueness, formatting, and union queries.  For instanc...

Having Ribbons in your  Microsoft Access 2016  application helps a lot when you need to use all the tabs that are present on the ribbon. However, there are times that you need to prevent the tabs on the ribbon from displaying when launching the application. MS Access, by default, does not provide an option for hiding the ribbon. Because of that,you have to opt for external approaches. One way is to create and apply a customised ribbon that can hide all the built-in tabs. Before you begin, make sure system tables are displayed in the Navigation Pane. To do this, change a setting in the Navigation Options dialog box so you can view the  USysRibbons  table once it is created. Follow these steps: Right-click the Navigation Bar at the top of the Navigation Pane, and then click Navigation Options. In the Navigation Options dialog box, under Display Options, click the Show System Objects check box, then click OK. You should be able to see the Access system tables i...

Learning about ms access query  is the key to a good database management system as it is the heart of any database application . There are many ways and questions to ask a database using queries and mastering the special conventions and criteria will pay dividend and avoid silly mistakes, illogical record set results and even errors. One of the more commonly used criteria and prone to errors (if misunderstood) is the date/time data type and it’s conventions. Take a look at the ms access query below showing orders before the year 2016 and the design of the query which suggested a date range from 1 st January 2016 to 31 st December 2016. The criteria for the above shows >=#01/01/2016 < #31/12/2016# which will not actually return the correct range and instead show what’s known as logical errors (dates outside the range). It’s missing the ‘And’ operator and better still adding the ‘Between’ operator will capture the correct range too. The # (hash sign) ...