Any one use Access Database?

I think you all can see why it is a lot of work to learn Access for this specific task only!

Well - as someone else said relational database design, in general, takes a while to learn. The normalization approach that Flapper outlines is absolutely correct, but might be overkill for the application.

This take us back to what someone else first posted -- and that is if I had 300 cassettes to manage, I'd use Excel.


Even the experts will disagree over cardinality. And like the NoSQL geeks are saying, not everything in life fits nicely into a table. :)

It might be worth a try to see if all this information is already online. I tried doing something like this with years of Simpsons episodes, but that's already done online.

tables store your data
queries let you view the data you want to see
forms let you enter your data


don't confuse one with the other... they each have their own function... people get confused when trying to make one do something it's not designed to do.

Once I have my tables and forms set up, I then set up my queries how I want them. Then If I have to I can extract the query results into excel.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

I have been using Access for years. It can be very tricky at times and the problem that you encountered - sorting and then other columns go out of order is not uncommon. Go to anyone one of your columns that you want to have the software use to put your database in the order you want - A - Z or Z - A. Highlight that column by going to the title field and clicking. Then go to the top menu bar and click A-Z or Z-A and the entire database will be sorted so that the column you used - for instance, Title - is now in alphabetical order and all of the entries in other columns are kept with it.

Database software used to be common. Not so much any longer. I have an old version of Access that I just keep using. It really is not hard to figure out and whenever you want to test how to do something make a copy of the database you are using and try on the copy or make a new database as a Test database and put several entries into it and try out what you want to do on the Test database. Keep it around for future try outs.

jerem0621 wrote:
tables store your data
queries let you view the data you want to see
forms let you enter your data


don't confuse one with the other... they each have their own function... people get confused when trying to make one do something it's not designed to do.

Once I have my tables and forms set up, I then set up my queries how I want them. Then If I have to I can extract the query results into excel.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

Excellent thumb-nail summary!
Databases are great at keeping your data organized. Spreadsheets are great at doing math! Excel has, of course, been given many database-like functions, but at it's heart, it wants to add numbers, not keep track of lists! Access, however, is pretty hard to do math with. So there is a place for each. It does get hard though, when you try to convince one application to mimic the abilities of the other! The row-and-column formats each starts with seem like they should be similar, but beyond the representation on screen, they are pretty different beasts. And let's not discuss all the people who type documents, memos, etc. using Excel rather than using Word!

Hey guys, thanks for all the info. I tried to take all into consideration and this is what I came up with:

Table 1 Cassette Info Data
Junction table between table 1 and table 2
Table 2 Song Names Data
Junction table between table 2 and table 3
Table 3 Name of Artist Data

Kind of a bear setting up relationships between these so hope I got it right.

Form for cassette info data
Form for song name data
Form for artist name

I have started to enter data and all is going well with the 3 forms. Have to enter each song and artist on the cassette even though one may already be in the database under another cassette. I tried to make one form but Access indicated too many items for one form.

Still have to set up queries and reports. Could not have gotten this far without y'all s (or is it youse guys?) help. Thanks!!!

Wayne

There is a lot on this thread about Excel vs Access but no one has talked about the information.

Being a computer consultant, the first thing to ask is what is the ultimate goal for the data? How will the data be used? How is it used now and what are the limitations that may require a change? Etc...etc...

I don't think you can decide if Excel or Access is the best fit without knowing the answers to some of these types of questions! I have programmed both and each have their advantages and disadvantages. Personally I prefer Excel for the limited amount of data that is being discussed but again it would depend on the use of the data.

Good luck.