
MS Access As A Dev Tool
Access continues to be a highly efficient tool for business database development.
The Best Microsoft Access Database Solutions owner, consultant, and principal programmer is Alison Balter - a recognized expert Microsoft Access consultant. Alison is the author of 15 Microsoft Access training books and videos. She is a frequent guest speaker at MS Access conferences and has developed hundreds of applications for businesses of all types.
We know your business data is important; we listen to your concerns, ask questions, and gather information from all stake holders. We discuss your needs and requirements for your database. We find out what you want, why you need various features so we can obtain as much information as possible. Once we have the information we need, we work with you to design the proper database architecture, plus the dashboards, the questions (queries), forms, and reports you need for an excellent database system.
We also create websites designed for speed to display your data accurately, using ASP.NET technology. Fast, secure, and robust, our ASP.NET web sites and web applications give you true business tool for finding and displaying information dynamically on the web.
Access continues to be a highly efficient tool for business database development.
How to create a Microsoft Access application with some unique tips and tricks.
Your Access developer near me has some great info for you about using Access efficiently.
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The material below originally appeared in Alison Balter's book Mastering Microsoft Office Access 2007 Development and is reprinted here with the author's permission. There may be references to "Figures" or "Chapters"that are not reprintable and are not used on this page.
You, or your application's users, might not always know the parameters for query output when designing the query. Parameter queries let you specify different criteria at runtime so that you don't have to modify the query each time you want to change the criteria.
For example, say you have a query, like the one shown in Figure 4.36, for which you want users to specify the date range of the data they want to view each time they run the query. The following clause has been entered as the criterion for the Order Date field:
Between [Enter Starting Date] And [Enter Ending Date]
This criterion causes two dialog boxes to appear when the user runs the query. The first one, shown in Figure 4.37, prompts the user with the criterion text in the first set of brackets (refer to Figure 4.36). The text the user types is substituted for the bracketed text. A second dialog box appears, prompting the user for whatever is in the second set of brackets. The user's response is used as the criterion for that query.
Add a parameter to the query qryCustomerOrderSummary so that you can view only Total Price summaries within a specific range. Go to the criteria for Total Price and type Between [Please Enter Starting Value] and [Please Enter Ending Value]. This allows you to view all the records in which the total price is within a specific range. The bracketed text is replaced by actual values when the user runs the query. Click OK and run the query. You're then prompted to enter both a starting and an ending value.
To make sure Access understands what type of data should be placed in these parameters, you must define the parameters. Do this by selecting Parameters from the Query menu to open the Query Parameters window. Another way to display the Query Parameters window is to right-click a gray area in the top half of the query design grid; then select Parameters from the ribbon while on the Design tab.
The text that appears within the brackets for each parameter must be entered in the Parameter field of the Query Parameters dialog box. The type of data in the brackets must be defined in the Data Type column. Figure 4.38 shows an example of a completed Query Parameters dialog box.
You can easily create parameters for as many fields as you want, and you add parameters just as you would add more criteria. For example, the query shown in Figure 4.39 has parameters for the Job Title, City, and Country/Region fields in the Employees table from the Northwind database. Notice that all the criteria are on one line of the query design grid, which means that all the parameters entered must be satisfied for the records to appear in the output.
The criterion for the title is [Please Enter a Job Title]. This means that the records in the result must match the title entered when the query is run. The criterion for the City field is [Please Enter a City]. Only records with a city matching the city entered will appear in the result when the query is run. Finally, the criterion for the Country/Region field is [Please Enter a Country or Region]. This means that only records with the country or region entered when the query is run will appear in the output.
This preceding material originally appeared in Alison Balter's book Mastering Microsoft Office Access 2007 Developmentand is reprinted here with author's permission.
When you need a Microsoft Access programmer for your Orlando, Florida business, call MS Access Solutions at (323) 285-0939. We have over 25 years experience in Microsoft Access programmer solutions. We create Access database applications for all sectors, consisting of hospitals, government agencies, the U.S. military, universities, agriculture & landscaping, human resources departments and companies, and insurance companies. We can take care of the most complex Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server database programming for your business. We also work with smaller projects, like fixing damaged Access database forms, MS Access reports, Access macros, and Visual Basic For Applications (VBA) code, connecting Excel to Microsoft Access or migrating Excel to Access.
Find out more about MS Access Solutions services on the Microsoft Access Programmer Saint Petersburg, Florida web page.
We get a lot of questions from our clients and other Microsoft Access programmers, so we are including a few of them in this section.
Answer: Microsoft Access is a database management system that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is used to store, retrieve, manage, and analyze data efficiently, allowing for custom application development with the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming language.
Answer: The key features of Microsoft Access include its user-friendly interface, powerful querying capabilities with SQL support, integration with other Office products, ability to create forms and reports easily, built-in templates for rapid development, and the use of VBA for automation and customization.
Answer: Ensuring data integrity involves using primary keys and foreign keys to maintain relationships between tables, implementing validation rules to enforce constraints on fields, using referential integrity settings to prevent orphaned records, and maintaining consistent naming conventions.
Answer: VBA allows developers to automate tasks within Access by writing macros or scripts. It provides the capability to create custom forms and reports, handle events like button clicks or form loads programmatically, perform complex calculations or logic checks not possible through standard queries.
Answer: Queries in Microsoft Access are structured using SQL (Structured Query Language). Users can create select queries to retrieve specific data from tables based on criteria; update queries alter existing records; append queries add new records; delete queries remove unwanted data. Queries can be designed using both Design View (graphical) or SQL View (text-based).
Answer: Microsoft Access is a desktop database system suitable for smaller-scale applications, offering an easy-to-use interface for forms and reports. SQL Server is an enterprise-level relational database management system designed for handling large volumes of data, supporting complex queries, transactions, and high concurrency.