Microsoft Access Tutorial – Database Objects

In our last Microsoft Access Tutorial, we created a database file, and had a quick look at the database window, with the types of objects listed down the left hand side. Today, we are going to find out what these objects are, and the roles they play in your database.

Tables – Tables are the foundation of your database. All the data that is stored in and retrieved from your database will be stored in tables. Each table should relate to one “entity” or type of information within your database. For example, you may have a “Customers” table, or an “Appointments” table, or a “Books” table. Each table is made up of multiple fields that describe your entity; for example, “Customer Name”, “Appointment Date”, or “Book ISBN”. It is imperative when building your database, that you get your table structure right. We will be spending the next few lessons discussing just how this is done.

Queries – A query is a way of looking at the data that is stored in your table. For example, you could create a query that would find all the customers who live in Paris or all the appointments in March. These are called “Select Queries”. There is another type of query, called an “Action Query”. Action queries modify the data in your tables. For instance, they can delete particular records, add new records or update product prices. A “record”, by the way, is one row of information (one customer, one appointment).

Forms – A form is the window that you look at when entering information. A form can have text boxes, check boxes, drop down boxes, buttons, and many more elements. It is, in short, the interface to your data. What the end users of your database see are a collection of forms that are linked to the data in your tables.

Reports – This is self explanatory, a printable view of your data, with customisable headers and footers.

Pages – For the purposes of this tutorial, we will not be touching on Pages. Pages are a way of viewing your data in HTML view (like a web page), and can be used to access your data online.

Macros – A macro is a series of automated functions. For example, you could create a macro that prompts for a date range, and then prints out a report according to the criteria selected.

Modules – As Tables are the foundations of your data, Modules are the foundation of your interface. Microsoft Access (and the rest of the MS Office suite of programs), uses a programming language called “Visual Basic for Applications”, or VBA for short. With knowledge of VBA, you can make your database application do pretty much anything you want it to. We will be touching on VBA throughout these tutorials, and providing resources for further learning down the track.

That’s it for today, over the next couple of tutorials, we will be talking about database design and how to create the foundation of your database. There is still a bit of theory to go through before we start getting our hands dirty, but I’ll try and make it is short and concise as possible. Stay tuned, the next Microsoft Access Tutorial will be coming soon.