I have to build a custom asset tracking database for our IT infrastructure that can track hardware delpoyment with all peripherals and software licenses as they are assigned to individual users and workstations. I am looking for reccomendations on book titles and any online resources that you would reccomend for learning how to design and build databases using Access 2007 or 2003. I know absolutely nothing about designing or building databases and I know very little about Access, given that criteria...
What are good books and websites to use to learn Microsoft Access?
<<What are good books and websites to use to learn Microsoft Access?>>
Experts Exchange
I have some books. I learned a vast majority of right here.
Each time you have a question on how to do something (anything) use the search function in the 'Access Database Zone'. Odds are someone else has already asked the same question. Read through the returned Q results.
You see, it's the best of both worlds.....reading and surfing.
>I know absolutely nothing about designing or building databases and I know very little about Access, given that criteria...< - then why are you dealing with the problem?
To DatabaseMX - I totally agree with you. I am all for NOT REINVENTING THE WHEEL. What spawned my question here was that everything that i found while good was not going to do things the way my internal customer is requesting that they be done so I am going to have to rool up my sleeves and hit the keyboard and mouse and make changes. To do that I need to learn. To learn I have found that the best voice is that of experience so I came here and asked the PRO's.
To GrayL - I am part of an IT team that supports 3800 hundred users between Southern California and New Jersey with Offices and Manufacturing facilities that range from Monterety Mexico to Toronto Canada. There are 7 people on thoperations and infrastructure side of th team right now. I am dealing with this because I was the only person brave enough to volunteer to learn. I am dealing with this because it needed to get done and no one else was wiling to take the responsibility. I may not get it done in the time frame that seasoned profesionals would but regardless of the result of my efforts I am going to learn allot. That is what being a successful IT profesional is about. If you are not willing to continually learn you have no business doing this job. The short answer to your question is that it needs to be solved and I am willing to do it regardless fo the amount of effort involved in finding the solution.
To build even a reasonably good database here, the learning curve just to work with the Access UI alone is going to be steep, let alone all of the other nuances as aspects of database design you would should know. AND ... often overlooked in most books (except the Dev Handbook I referenced) ... you need to be pretty damn good a writing VBA code and understanding code logic ... if you *really* want to create a professional or semi pro database.
So, are you saying that your org is not in a $$ position to farm this project out to a developer?
OK, then one of the most available and helpful tools is Northwind, the sample mdb that came with your copy of Access. One you understand the essentials of a mdb, a thorough perusal of all the objects in that mdb will give you a sound basis for developing Access projects. In addition, the Help files are full of good examples. Type Alt+F11, you are taken to the VB Editor, and Help in that mode gives you the VBA side of Access. Both Help sources and the accompanying See Also's contain a wealth of information on this RDBMS. And the best part - it's free!
