Administrative Arts » Microsoft Access

Learn Office 2007 with Ribbon Hero

Jodith — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:00:45 +0000

One of the biggest problems with Office 2007 is that the interface of the programs is very different from previous versions of Office. Tasks you can usually do with your eyes closed have become absurdly hard in 2007 simply because we have to relearn the interface. Once you figure out the interface, you’ll find that Office 2007 is really a great set of programs, but you might pull your hair out learning it.

Well, the folks at Microsoft have finally come up with a way to help us learn the new interface. It’s called Office Ribbon Hero, and it’s a game to help you learn the 2007 interface and new functionality. It installs seamlessly with all of your Office programs, and you earn points just through doing your every day work. However, you can also complete the “challenges” within Ribbon Hero to go through tutorials teaching you the new interface.

Office Hero is still in beta, and it has a few bugs (some challenges don’t update properly), but I’ve really enjoyed playing and learning some really great functionality that I didn’t even know existed in Word 2007. I’ve played through most of the challenges in Word 2007, and I’m looking forward to playing in the other Office programs as well. If the game is popular, Microsoft is planning to release new content and challenges for it in the future, to help you lean to use more advanced functions in the Office Suite of programs.

If you want to learn the ins and outs of Office 2007, download and install Office Ribbon Hero. Remember, it’s important to keep your software skills top notch, especially in today’s challenging employment environment.

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10 Tips for Setting Up a Mailing List

Jodith — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:44 +0000

In my last post, I talked about the Pitfalls of Addressing Mail. Today I’d like to talk about actually creating your mailing list. I have created and maintained many mailing lists over the years, and have learned from my many mistakes how to avoid some of the problems you run across when you create a database. Here are 10 tips for setting up a database for a mailing list to help you avoid some of those mistakes yourself.

Use an actual database. If you only have a small set of addresses, you’ll be tempted to keep them in Word or Excel. DON’T! Seriously, if you don’t know Access, take a class. It will make your life so much easier and make you more employable to boot. You can do so many things in Access that you can never do in Excel or Word.
Put all the elements of a name in separate fields: honorific (i.e. Mr., Mrs., etc.), first name, last name, suffix (i.e. Jr., Sr., etc.). This way you can use the database in a mail merge where you use each part of the name separately. “Mr. John Smith” in the address, “Dear Mr. Smith” in the opening, and addressing the person by “John” in the letter to make it more personal. If you put “Mr. John Smith, Jr.” all in one field, you loose a great deal of flexibility in using the database.
Have secondary addressee fields for use with couples. Again, this gives you much more flexibility in using the database in mail merge letters, especially if they have different last names.
Put the zip code +4 in a separate field. The 5 digit zip code goes in one field, and the +4 goes into another. It makes for easier data entry, and you don’t have a bunch of empty spaces in your field if you don’t have the +4 code.
Again for different fields, keep the city and state separate for flexibility in sorting and filtering.

Give each client a unique code. This is just good database practice, but it also helps when you have 25 John Smiths.
Don’t forget an e-mail field. Companies are using e-mail more and more to reach out to their clientele.
Include demographic information if you gather it. Sometimes you might want to target mailings by age or gender. Make sure you include fields for any information your company gathers.
Add a phone number field to maximize the flexibility of your database. Now it can be used for a phone campaign.
Keep all your mailing lists in one database. Just use fields to distinguish what mailing list each name belongs to. This has several benefits:

You keep all data in one place, so only one database needs to be updated when people move.
If you have one client on multiple lists, you only need one entry per client.
You are less likely to be creating duplicate entries.
It’s easier to move people between lists or use queries to pull people from multiple lists for a new purpose.

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Excel Is NOT a Database!

Jodith — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:00:05 +0000

We all know what Microsoft Excel is. It’s a spreadsheet software. It’s not a database. It’s never been a database. It never will be a database. Do I sound strident there? GOOD!

Seriously, it’s not a database, folks, so please quit using it as one. I can’t tell you how many places I’ve worked keep critical data in spreadsheets, jumping through all kinds of hoops and writing all kinds of code to get it to act like a database. The employee hours they spend maintaining these spreadsheets and getting information back out of them just astounds me. Why don’t they just convert it to a database and be done with it?

Why Businesses Don’t Use Databases

I’ve heard many excuses over the years as to why businesses use Excel over Access. Let’s debunk some of those reasons.

Access Is Too Hard To Learn

It really isn’t, you know. Most employees who interact with the database only need to know how to fill in a form or click on an already created report. The only people who need any in-depth knowledge of Access are the ones who create the database and those who maintain the back end of the database. And honestly, they need less in-depth knowledge than the person struggling with coding in Excel to try and get a spreadsheet to act like a database, and they don’t have to spend nearly as much time to manage the database.

We’ve Always Used Excel for This

So what? You may have always used a hammer to crack nuts, but it doesn’t make it the best tool for the job. If you’re working on the company financials, by all means, use a spreadsheet. If you’re detailing your budget, of course you’ll use a spreadsheet. But if you’re maintaining non-numerical data, use a database. Actually, even most financial data is kept on a database these days (that’s what accounting programs are, they’re databases). They simply export cumulative data to spreadsheets for special financial calculations such as projections and planning.

There’s Not Enough Data Here to Warrant a Database

How many times have I heard this? And a year or three later, they’re still using that spreadsheet, only it’s grown to 10,000 rows and takes 5 minutes to open. Unless you’re intending this spreadsheet to be a list of your 50 or so employees with phone numbers, you’re probably better off with a spreadsheet. Although, even the list of employees could possibly grow exponentially, so scratch that idea. Seriously though, if you think you’re just making a small list, go ahead and put it into a spreadsheet. But if over time that list is growing unmanageable, then create a database and import your data from the spreadsheet. It’s really simple to do and well worth the 5 minutes it’s going to take you.

Why You Should Use a Database

Here’s the nitty gritty of why you should use a database to store data and not a spreadsheet:

More than one person can update a database at a time. Only one person at a time can update a spreadsheet. Right there you have an efficiency incentive to use a database. And how many times has someone opened a spreadsheet in Read Only mode, saved changes to it to their harddrive, and then copied it back over the network copy, eliminating any changes the other person made *shudders*. I’ve seen that happen a number of times over the years.
A database stores information more efficiently. Relational databases, such as Microsoft Access, uses tables to segregate data. You’ll have one table for customer information, and another one for customer purchases. These would be tied together via the customer ID. So you don’t have to repeat all of your customer information for each purchase made. Therefore, your database is smaller than your spreadsheet. This is a crude example, but it gives you an idea how, overtime, your database is hugely more streamlined than your spreadsheet.
Queries, and the reports based on those queries, are easier to write and run. Because your data is relational, you can mix and match and re-sort your data in all kinds of different ways. You can do that with a spreadsheet, given enough time and code. But with a database like Access, a person with relatively little knowledge can produce complex queries and reports.
Data recovery is more efficient. If you have a large amount of data, finding the particular data point you want can be especially difficult in a spreadsheet. Those of you who work with large spreadsheets know this. You get a spreadsheet with thousands of lines, and paging through the spreadsheet can slow to a crawl, especially if you don’t have an ultra-fast computer.

Just Say No

The next time your boss wants to use a spreadsheet for a project better suited to a database, just say no. Explain why a database is better and get permission to use a database. Like I said, Excel is a good tool for certain things, but it just isn’t a database.Similar Posts:

Create an Auto fill-in form in Access

Jodith — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:28:42 +0000

When you’re doing data entry, you want to minimize keystrokes as much as possible to save time (not to mention prevent carpal tunnel). Because we all love to save time, don’t we? One good way to save keystrokes is to have fields fill-in automatically as you enter data. For example, once you enter the customer number, the company name, address and phone number could automatically fill in.
Here is a relatively simple way to create that form. For this example, I’ll be using 3 tables. The Students table has 3 fields: Student_ID, FirstName, and LastName. The Classes table has 2 fields: Class_ID and ClassName. The Registration table has 2 fields: Student_ID and Class_ID. You’ll notice those two fields already exist in the other tables.

The simplest way to create your autofill-in form is to create a query from the fields you want to auto fill. In this case, I want a registration form that when I enter the Student ID and the Class ID, the student’s name and the class name is automatically filled in.

Create a query in design view and choose the tables you want to pick fields from. In this case, the Students, Classes, and Registration tables. If you do not already have relationships between the tables, you should create them now.
Now, choose the fields that you want in the query. In this case, we want the Student_ID and the Class_ID from the Registration table. We want to use these because we want the update from our data entry to go to that table. Then choose the FirstName and LastName from the Students table and the ClassName from the Classes table.
Save your query.
Create a form using the Forms Wizard. Why use the Wizard? Because it’s easy, and we all like easy! I usually use the wizard to create the form and then make changes I want in the design view. It saves time.
Choose the query you just made for the basis of your form. Choose the rest of your form options and click finish.

That’s it. You now have a autofill-in form. Go ahead and try it! When you enter the Student ID and hit tab, the student’s name should fill in. When you enter the Class ID, the class name should fill in. At this point, I would go in and set the tab order to go from the Student ID to the Class ID, so you don’t have to use the couple of extra tabs to go through the fields that automatically fill in. If you find you need to change something in those fields, you can always click on them.

I uploaded the database I used in the above example to give you an idea of how these tables, query and form will look. You can access it here.

Remember, when you are creating a database, plan out what you want to do ahead of time. It’s easier to set up the database if you have the design sketched out ahead of time.

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