Dag Wolters
asked on
Best strategy when moving from a flat file "database" to an Access 2016 relational database?
Hi,
At the moment we are running our member "database" in Excel (yeah, I know!)... But as the members keep piling up, the member management part becomes very time consuming. Now someone told me to, instead of importing these csv-files to Excel, doing so into a new MS Access 2016 relational database. I am quite familiar with formulas in Excel to manipulate data and to clean up the data in the fields after importing the files into Excel, but I am a bit hesitant of learning a completely new software as I do not know how difficult this might be?
The current flat file version is rather simple. It consists of fields for the parents and their children. The main focus should be the child. As it is now I have the parents and one child per row, which means that parents who have registred several children, will be on several rows, ("records"). I guess it would make much more sense if I had one table for the parents data and one table with the "children data", as a child can have one or two parents and one or two parents can have on or several children. Whats gets a bit complicated is that we have divorced parents with several children in our current file, which means that we might need to set up some more tables as well such as "household table"???
Anyway, I just wanted first to get some input into if you think it would be feasible for me to make this transition with a good book on Access and maybe some kind help from you guys!? Or should we just stick with the Excel file?
Regards,
Dag
At the moment we are running our member "database" in Excel (yeah, I know!)... But as the members keep piling up, the member management part becomes very time consuming. Now someone told me to, instead of importing these csv-files to Excel, doing so into a new MS Access 2016 relational database. I am quite familiar with formulas in Excel to manipulate data and to clean up the data in the fields after importing the files into Excel, but I am a bit hesitant of learning a completely new software as I do not know how difficult this might be?
The current flat file version is rather simple. It consists of fields for the parents and their children. The main focus should be the child. As it is now I have the parents and one child per row, which means that parents who have registred several children, will be on several rows, ("records"). I guess it would make much more sense if I had one table for the parents data and one table with the "children data", as a child can have one or two parents and one or two parents can have on or several children. Whats gets a bit complicated is that we have divorced parents with several children in our current file, which means that we might need to set up some more tables as well such as "household table"???
Anyway, I just wanted first to get some input into if you think it would be feasible for me to make this transition with a good book on Access and maybe some kind help from you guys!? Or should we just stick with the Excel file?
Regards,
Dag
ASKER
Thanks, Roy! I will give it a try.
Post back if you need help. I am just getting into Access myself so I will help where I can, or depending on the amount of data that you have you can stick with Excel. I can help you with forms, etc for Excel.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
That looks useful Crystal
thanks, Roy. The biggest mistake that beginners make is not enough planning. It is common to make an Access database look like Excel because that is the easiest way to get the data in.
I've been working with Excel & VBA for many years now, but never gotten around to Access. I've just started developing a database for work using Access so I'll check out your videos.
Roy, great! I hope they help you.
Dag, here is a free download for Access that will give you some ideas on how to keep track of your member information. On the download page are also 2 videos explaining how to use it:
Contacts -- Names, Addresses, Phone Numbers, eMail Addresses, Websites, Lists, Projects, Notes, Attachments
http://www.msaccessgurus.com/Contacts.htm
To relate children and spouse to a head of household, treat the head of household like a company and the children as company contacts.
Your organization would be a List. Contacts can be members of one or more lists.
This example is elaborate as I spent hundreds of hours building and refining it over the years. Don't let its complexity scare you off from Access! Even seasoned Access developers would need to spend a lot of time to understand it all.
Dag, here is a free download for Access that will give you some ideas on how to keep track of your member information. On the download page are also 2 videos explaining how to use it:
Contacts -- Names, Addresses, Phone Numbers, eMail Addresses, Websites, Lists, Projects, Notes, Attachments
http://www.msaccessgurus.com/Contacts.htm
To relate children and spouse to a head of household, treat the head of household like a company and the children as company contacts.
Your organization would be a List. Contacts can be members of one or more lists.
This example is elaborate as I spent hundreds of hours building and refining it over the years. Don't let its complexity scare you off from Access! Even seasoned Access developers would need to spend a lot of time to understand it all.
ASKER
This is a very good starting point!
Access is Access and Excel is Excel...
Access is RAD platform which includes a true relational database and excel is a spreadsheet that you just input whatever you need where you like and almost no restrictions...(except maximum columns-rows)
On the other hand Access needs design ...the better one the best it performs and most resilient to every future demand.Just think that getting the employees that have 2 kids with age greater than 15 years where the one is a boy and the other is a girl it is just a matter of a simple query....
Access is RAD platform which includes a true relational database and excel is a spreadsheet that you just input whatever you need where you like and almost no restrictions...(except maximum columns-rows)
On the other hand Access needs design ...the better one the best it performs and most resilient to every future demand.Just think that getting the employees that have 2 kids with age greater than 15 years where the one is a boy and the other is a girl it is just a matter of a simple query....
Thank you ~ happy to help
However, Access is built specifically for this. You can import your existing data from Excel into a new database or use a template and modify it.
If you are building from scratch then there are special fields from the More Fields button called Quick Start. These are in the Table Tab displayed when you add a Table. So, if you select Name from these it will add First Name & Last Name Fields