Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? John S. Lemon University of Aberdeen Can we strangle those Wizards (sic) k from Microsoft ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Introduction & Background Universities have reduced budgets Need to find ways of reducing costs Microsoft is going to cost more Faced with a number of choices  Reduce software portfolio  Move all applications to Microsoft  Use Star Office ??

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Introduction & Background Constant review of software Primary target is SiR Why ?  Not understood by ‘managers’  ‘Experts’ don’t like hierarchical data base managers Have had to justify regularly over the years vs.  Rapport  Oracle  Access

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Eliminating the opposition Rapport was easy  Never really took off  Cumbersome interface  Died after short and unspectacular life !!! Oracle – harder  Also cumbersome  Not user friendly  Barry Robinson’s paper  No statistical facilities

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Eliminating the opposition Access is harder to eliminate  Appears more user friendly  ‘Cheap’ – part of Office licence  Wizards to ‘help’ create / manage data bases  Lots of ‘Teach yourself’ books  Windows compatible  Claims to be multi-user  Managers love it because ‘everyone is using it’ Need a test to prove the ‘winner’

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Too complex to try as an experiment

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Test data base Three record types  Sex, date of birth, hair & eye colour in all (NB. L. Blue, D. Blue & Blue for eyes )  Aberdeen graduate in Parent & Spouse  Date of Marriage & Marital Status  Child Status

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? The experiment Will use screen shots as experienced crashes when doing ‘live’ Act as a novice Make the same assumptions Try and interprete ‘Microsoft speak’ Start up Access and see what happens

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What do we choose ? – try the wizard ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Not a lot of help – so go back

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Try a new project

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Calls it a project ! – carry on anyway

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What the …. Is this ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Even more confusion – try OK

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Help !!

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? ???

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Hi - it looks like I’ve got a data base

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Now for a form

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Oops

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Back to the drawing board

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Let’s try a new data base

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What next

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Hey – I can just enter data

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Perhaps not

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Now try the wizard

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? No help from wizard so …..

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? ‘Subject’ is 1 st field and it’s text

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Length changed – but what are other fields ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Does lookup help ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Not really

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Decimal places for an INTEGER ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? So far so good – how do I save it ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Yes - thank you

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Give it a name

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What is this – oh go ahead and do it

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Hoorah – my first table

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Now how do I get data in

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Will this wizard be any better

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? I get to choose the layout

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? This looks boring

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? So does this

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Hey – I like this

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? A pretty background as well

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Of course I want to open the form - stupid

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? If I ask for help I can’t see the form

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Lets start I can have ‘X’ for Sex and ‘K’ for married …..

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? I entered ’29 th Feb 1963’ – it’s not too large

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Let’s give up as I’m confused

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Stage Two Aberdeen Maternity Data Bank would be a conversion No ‘Export’ / ‘Import’ directly How to transfer Via Excel files Try this

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Export from SiR

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? This looks easy

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Find the CSV file

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Hey – some intelligence at last

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Even better – no field naming !

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Of course I want a new table

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Better still – I can change things – if I want

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? I now know about ‘Primary Keys’

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? It remembered the file name

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Of course I want to analyse it

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Hoorah

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Yes - please

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Not quite what I expected

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Keep going it might get clearer

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Just keep going …. I’m lost and confused

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What’s this about splitting tables – I want statistics !

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What on earth is going on ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Stage Two – import the rest of data Repeat for Spouse records Continue with Child Problem with ‘Primary Keys’ Nothing is simple

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? But it still completes the task !

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? If ‘analyse’ Child record it tries to split it

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? I don’t like the ‘proposals’ !!

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? More primary key warnings

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Looks OK

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? At last – three tables

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Another wizard – fingers crossed

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What are relationships ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Just ‘Spouse’ to add

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Now how do I link them ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? ?

So these are the ‘Join types’ – what do I do ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Ignore the types and ‘join the dots’

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Now to find Blue-eyed children of Blue-eyed parents

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? I have to modify as no chance to ‘select’

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? This is the query – add the ‘eye colour’ select

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? One word – YES !!!

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? What are you blethering about ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? As clear as mud

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? After a lot of effort I get this Only SIX - (6) records Was it worth it ?

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? The vPQL solution

Can we strangle those Wizards from Microsoft ? Need I say more ? Wizards only partly help Sometimes confuse naïve users Do not make life easy for those of us who help / advise users Access is not the “Philospher’s stone” SiR lives to fight another day