Is Access too big a tool for simple data?

[chilly hellion]

Hello and happy Monday

I'm posting a question as part of an assignment for an Access class I'm enrolled in this semester. While the reason for this post may be for an assignment, I do have a legitimate question that I'm interested in finding an answer for. I know that Access often hold an edge over Excel because you can store a lot more data with Access in a highly-organized format. Part of this advantage is due to the fact that Access databases can consist of multiple tables, each linked to each other in various relationships. But what about simple one-table databases?

I'm taking an inventory of company computers at work this week and I've already organized all of my data into an Excel spreadsheet. The data displays nicely from an Excel spreadsheet and is sufficiently organized, but I was wondering what other advantages an Access database might hold over my simple Excel spreadsheet. I don't think I'd be able to take advantage of multiple tables or relationships, given the simplicity and straightforward nature of the data, but I was wondering what kinds of data-lookup, sorting, and form-entry features an Access database would enable.

I know this is probably a very easy question, but I'm interested in hearing opinions.

Thanks, and enjoy your week!

[pkstormy]

Given the many easy queries/data entry forms/etc... you can setup with MSAccess, it would be ideal over any excel file regardless if it's only 1 table.

Keep in mind that the more rows of data excel has, the slower it will open. I had to work on a project where all the data was in an excel spreadsheet and amounted to about 10,000 rows. It would take minutes to open the excel file (there was also a lot of macros and other code in the excel file though which also slowed things down.)

[chilly hellion]

Thanks for your reply, pkstormy, and for the useful perspective on Access and Excel. I think that it would be worth building a small Access database for my project just for the query and form tools I would be able to use. File size and opening speed probably isn't an issue with my project because I work for a small office of only about 100 local employees. What I really wanted to know is if it would be worth the trouble to build an Access database just for a one-table collection of data. Does Access offer advantages even with the use of just one table? I think it's something that I'll have to play around with and figure out what works. The good thing is that a single-table database isn't complicated enough for me to get lost in, and I can learn by doing. My main question is whether it's worth attempting, and you've given me a good answer. I think I'll give it a try this week.

[pkstormy]

I think once you see how you can create several different types of queries to filter data or sum/avg/etc... you'll like MSAccess better.

The main complaint I heard from users converting from Excel to MSAccess is not being able to put the formula's into a specific row/column in the table like you do with Excel (since MSAccess is record only based). You create MSAccess Reports to do things like that.

But MSAccess Queries are really powerful on setting up Groupings/sorting with criteria that can be "re-used" by just having the user enter whatever they want to filter/total on.

The one thing I liked that Excel does that MSAccess doesn't do (easily that is), is that in Excel, you can create a formula and base it upon the value in the row above that field (and then copy throughout the entire column or a range of values) (I rarely find a need for this though). This type of 'basing a value on a forumala using it's previous value' can sometimes be difficult in MSAccess unless you design a form to do this. But form/report design is where MSAccess really, really shines.