New to Access. How do I?

[clindquist]

I took a course on Office 2010 in college, 9 years ago, I know Access has some great features. And I know what I want it to do, but I don't know how to execute it. Can some one help me?

I work for a Non-For-Profit Organization in the finance department. We have over 200 employees. We have many different contracts/programs that people are allocated to. Their allocations is how their wages, and any bills (building rents, cell phone, etc) are charged. HR does the wages. But I want to make a data base with all the employees allocation in it. So when I do the bills everything feeds off of the same allocations. Right now I have about 6 different excel sheets that I have to update when someone's allocations change (which can be often) My boss has put me in charge of this dream of hers.



Is this even possible? And what would the best way to go about this be?? It's been so long since I played with Access that I don't remember where to even start.

[June7]

I am sure it is possible.

Might also be possible in OTS program like Quickbooks.

Go about by identifying your data entities and relationships. What type of relationship? If each emp can have multiple allocations and each allocation can associate with multiple emps, that is many-to-many and requires a junction table.

Then build appropriate tables.

[CarlettoFed]

The simplest thing would be to exploit the data in the Excel file to recreate the structure on Access and then improve it in efficiency, as needed.
For this reason it would be useful to see this Excel file, just the names of the columns and a couple of rows of data are sufficient, replacing any sensitive ones.

[RayMilhon]

Step 1 is to go over the Excel spreadsheets and analyze the data. Which columns in the different sheets have the same data how are they different. Do your analysis first then construct your tables. Remember the rules of normalization to design your tables. In my opinion this is the first and most important step in the process. A good design makes the rest of the project easier a bad one and you're screwed no matter what you do the rest of the way.

[Perfac]

Clindquist. Access is from heaven. You can do miracles with it. I owned an Insurance brokerage with 25 000 clients. Spreadsheets and the hassles that comes with it, is well known to me. Most of my arthritis today is because of spread sheets, smile. My son Ruben (22) and me frequently have a discussion on, "The ultimate IT or software can deliver to you". Your kind of information should be in a Database like Access not on spreadsheets. We always say if you duplicate one piece of information or enter any one word or number twice, your database should improve. Duplication ensures human error, I am sure you agree. I owned three sizable businesses over more than 30 years, and today I still do not know of a system that can bring "Ultimate IT" to one of them. Can Access bring the Ultimate database to you. Ha! Access impresses me.

[Perfac]

Clindquist. Access is from heaven. You can do miracles with it. I owned an Insurance brokerage with 25 000 clients. Spreadsheets and the hassles that comes with it, is well known to me. Most of my arthritis today is because of spread sheets, smile. My son Ruben (22) and me frequently have a discussion on, "The ultimate IT or software can deliver to you". Your kind of information should be in a Database like Access not on spreadsheets. We always say if you duplicate one piece of information or enter any one word or number twice, your database should improve. Duplication ensures human error, I am sure you agree. I owned three sizable businesses over more than 30 years, and today I still do not know of a system that can bring "Ultimate IT" to one of them. Can Access bring the Ultimate database to you. Ha! Access impresses me. But for the best programmers, you still need time. Not something a Novice can do in a flash.