Hey guys,

I'm new here and actually new to access 2003. I have deal with Vb.net but never access. I actually doing a intern and they want me to build a huge database. All there documents are spread out and all over the place as format of excel. I could just convert them into a access database, but they want all the excel in one huge or whole database. Since the database contain information about people they want to pull up certain person and see what his information is. My question is I believe that can be done, the problem is I'm new and I don't know where to start. I thought of just coding it, but there converting the access database so there no point of coding it. So a lot of explaining to me and a lot of help would be awesome.

Thanks a bunch,
Jett

i'd grab a copy of "access 2003 step by step" first off to familiarise yourself with access. its the easiest book to learn how to play with access from. You should be able to get a good basic handle in a weekend from it.

Whilst I love the wrox series for most things, they are at the level of knowledge above this book and you'll get more out of them, once you've done that. Get a grip on what access can and can't do before you start playing with the design.

What you're outlining, in principle, is do-able without too much aggravation. However without a better understanding of what the system is aimed at and the structure its going to be hard to address the issues properly.

Without posting live data, of course, what do the spreadsheets look like?

First answer: what are the reports they want to get out of the database, and what is the data they will be inputting regularly?



mmcdonal

Look it up at: http://wrox.books24x7.com

Welcome to P2P, Jett.

I break up Access into three parts whenever someone at work asks me: 1) structure, 2) cosmetic, 3) functional.

Structural has to do with how to make proper data tables and follow the rules for normalization, naming conventions, setting data types, what to store vs. what NOT to store (e.g. calculated values), creating form/subform combinations, creating report/subreport combinations.

Cosmetic has do with how the forms and report will look and how to make them visually pleasing, how to abide by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), conventions on 800x600 vs. finer screen resolutions (see ADA), etc.

Functional has to do with constructing queries properly so they do what you want; and the big one is how to do Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming behind the forms and report that actually DO something when you click or button or change a value somewhere.

Years ago, our office tended to have training classes on the first two, but it wasn't until a few of begged did they get the vendor to set up a two-day extensive VBA class. A form/report is useless unless it DOES something.

You need to get a good handle on all these concepts before you make anything meaningful and that functions properly.

Greg Serrano
Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality, Air Quality Division