Should I use Excel or Access (2013) for Creating new database

[Dineth]

Hi, I am new to Access and somewhat OK with Excel. (And English is not my first language therefore sorry if my sentences make no clear sense) I have a decision to make, and I am expecting your professional advice

I am working at a government institution, agriculture sector.



We have field staff of ~150 doing different field ranges ~350. Some officers are assign to more than one field BUT no field is assign to more than one officer. (these fields belongs to different Districts, number of fields in each district is not the same)

we have four different programs namely new cultivation program (NPP), productivity improvement of existing lands (PIP), farmer capacity building (HRM) and post harvest handling (PHP).

Each program has its activities lets say NPP1, NPP2, PIP1, PIP2,PIP3 etc. for an example NPP1 is land inspection, NPP2 is donating planting materials. these activities are predefined and sequential. (planting materials can not be donate without land inspection)

Officers send their progress to progress monitoring unit monthly which includes progress of each program and each activity progress for that month.

My objective is to track, analyse, visualize officers progress.

These are the questions I have,
As I am OK with Excel and NOT good with Access do you think I should use access for this due to any special advantage only access can give me.

Any tricks and tips to consider before start access database?

I hear Access is not good with graphs, is this true? can I visualize data with Access?

[June7]

I recommend Access.

Access can do graphing, although not as versatile as Excel

You should gain a better understanding of relational database principles, Access functionality, programming concepts, VBA language.

[ranman256]

Access is what you need. And June7 is right, it can do charts. Simple enough for most.
And if you need a super-chart, you can always export to excel.