with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall1 Identify Good Database Design A database is an organized collection of data—facts about people, events, things, or ideas—related to a specific topic or purpose. Information is data that is organized in a useful manner.

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall2 Identify Good Database Design Use good design techniques when creating a new database. –Determine the information you want to keep track of to create a new database. –Ask yourself, “What questions should this database be able to answer for me?” –The purpose of a database is to store data in a manner that makes it easy for you to get the information you need.

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall3 Database Structure An Organized collection of related information Table – Vertical columns & horizontal rows where information is stored Record –A row –Information about one person or thing Field –A column –Smallest unit of information

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall4 Information is in the TABLE The basic part of a DB is called a TABLE A matrix of rows and columns (just like you used in MS Excel) that contains the data to be stored and later analyzed Can be created “from scratch” or imported from some other source or program (such as Excel) Columns in table define what “fields” will be used (such as NAME, AGE, etc.)

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall5 Data type defines the type of data the field will contain Used to ensure right kind of data is entered 1-5 Data Type

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall6 Data Types  Text  Number  Date/Time  Currency  AutoNumber  Yes/No 1-6

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall7 Four DB “objects” we will use

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall8 Create and Use a Query, Form, and Report A query is a database object that retrieves specific data from one or more database objects—either tables of other queries. A form is an Access object with which you can enter data, edit data, or display data from a table or a query.

with Microsoft ® Access 2010© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall9 Create and Use a Query, Form, and Report A report is a database object that displays the fields and records from a table or a query in an easy-to-read format suitable for printing. This is usually the final output to be provided to the person who was looking to retrieve information from the database tables.