I'm a newbie to this forum but I hope someone can solve my Access problem.
I am using Office 2003 and thought that each program interlaced almost seemlessly - but this appears not to be the case.
I have not used Access for over ten years (I have always used Excel), but now have a need for a database which gathers information on a monthly basis from four or five product retailers and assembles it in one database. This will give details of the customer, product purchased etc. I then wish to produce monthly reports and issue these to other stakeholders in this venture.
I can request the data in a set format from the product providers as an Excel sheet and I thought it would be easy to import each one into a single table, which can then be analysed both for that month and year to date etc.
To test what I am doing, I have created two Excel worksheets, both containing identical fields and with rows of data. I created an Access blank database and then used the external import wizard to get the first data into a table. This goes quite successfully, although it does not like the headers in the Excel spreadsheet, so I removed these.
The problem now comes to load the second batch of data which I would like to continue as additional records in the one table. The wizard allows me to pull up the second spreadsheet and displays the data correctly. If I leave the next page 'check here if first rows contains headers' unchecked (because I got rid of the headers and it is pure data), it will not allow me to select an existing table at the next stage. The radio button is for a new table and the lower button is greyed and you cannot select a table.
If, however, I check the previous 'first line contains headers' it then allows me to select an existing table and proceed, but then claims that errors have occured and the data has not loaded ... end of story!
I do not know what I am doing wrong here. The two Excel spreadsheets have identical columns etc. I have even cut the data down to just one column in each worksheet, but I still get the same result.
So my questions are:
1) Have I not set up the database in the correct fashion?
2) Have I not set up the table correctly to accept further data?
3) Has Access not loaded correctly and it is a software fault?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Tony Hills