Is an access relational databse the right route for my problem?

[kelston01]

Good evening all

I am an almost total beginner with Access, have produced some flat databases with switchboards and the odd event but that is it.

My question is, is a relational database the right way to go for me.

I work in the estates dept of a large UK university. At any time we have probably 15 - 20 projects on the go, employing approx 30 - 40 agency tradesmen ( bricklayers joiners, plasterers and so on)

At the moment the department uses a very large spreadsheet to record the hours worked on each project by each of the operatives in each week ending.
So the speadsheet layout is

List of the project numbers in the A column


Rows 1, 2 and 3 contain: Employees name, Agency he/she comes from, Employees trade

There is one sheet(tab) for each week ending

At the end of each week after the times have been entered in the sheet a report is sent to each agency listing their staff and how many hours they have worked that week so the agency can do its payroll. That is a relativelysimple operation.

At the end of each month we have to produce a report listing the hours spent (and the cost) to date on each project by each trade. The cost is arrived at by using a lookup table to look up the hourly rate for that trade.
Simplified layout
a b c d e
1 Smith Brown Grant Jones
2 Agency A Agency B Agency C AgencyB
3 Joiner Plasterer B/layer Plasterer
4 Project1 6 15 12 15
5 Project2 14 5 6
6 project3 20 25 12 20

and a tab for each week ending

And a simplified report(assuming all trades paid at £10/hour)

Joiners Plasterers B/layers Project Cost to date
Project1 £60 £300 £120 £480
project2 £140 £ 50 £ 60 £250
project3 £200 £450 £120 £770

This of course, when a project has been running for several months, means collecting all the data from each week ending tab using sumifs formula and so on and.. well I am sure you can imagine.

My question is, would this be more efficiently carried out using a relational database, as I have said I am almost a complete beginner with Access and have inherited this spreadsheet, which seems to me an awfully clunky way of going about the process. Am I wrong or should I suggest moving to an Access relational database.

My apologies for being so long winded with my explanation but I hope it makes some sense. I couldn't send the spreadsheet its massive

regards to all

kelston01

[June7]

You are not wrong. An Excel spreadsheet can be made to serve as a database but it isn't intended for that, just as Access is a less than ideal analysis tool (what if scenarios).

[kelston01]

Thank you June7 I am much obliged and relieved to hear I am on the correct route. Now to read up on relational databases.

I dont suppose you can reccommend a good book on the subject?

regards

kelston01

[June7]

None specific.

Lots of on-line resources.

See if this gets you started http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/

[kelston01]

June7

That certainly looks comprehensive, should keep me quiet for a bit

Thank you,