1 CA202 Spreadsheet Application Working with Database Data Lecture # 14

2 Objectives In this chapter you will learn to: ✔ Look up information in a data list. ✔ Retrieve data from a database. ✔ Summarize data using database functions.

3 Lists Access and Excel both work with lists of data. In Excel, that data is often stored in complex lists such as PivotTables, but the data used to create PivotTables is a series of rows in a worksheet. Excel does have a searching (lookup) capability you might expect to find only in a database program. can If you have data in a database that you’d like to bring into Excel, you create a query, Similarly, you can use the built in functions into Excel to query the data list and summarize the data it contains.

4 Looking Up Information in a Data List Whenever you create a worksheet that holds information about a list of distinct items, such as products offered for sale by a company you should ensure that at least one column in the list contains a unique value that distinguishes that row. It could be primary key column, for product table it could be product ID. You can use the VLOOKUP function to let your colleagues type a Product ID in a cell and have the corresponding product information appear in another cell.

5 Looking Up Info in a Data List =VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, range_lookup)

6 Looking Up Info in a Data List The VLOOKUP function works a bit differently depending on whether the range_lookup argument is set to TRUE or FALSE. The following list summarizes how the function works based on the value of range_lookup. –If the range_lookup argument is left blank or set to TRUE and VLOOKUP doesn’t find an exact match for lookup_value, the function returns the largest value that is less than lookup_value. –If the range_lookup argument is left blank or set to TRUE and lookup_value is smaller than the smallest value in the named range, an #N/A error is returned. –If the range_lookup argument is left blank or set to TRUE and lookup_value is larger than all values in the named range, the largest value in the named range is returned. –If the range_lookup argument is set to FALSE and VLOOKUP doesn’t find an exact match for lookup_value, the function returns an #N/A error. ExerciseLookup

7 Retrieving Data from a Database You can also save data lists, or tables, that you’ve created in other database and spreadsheet programs and then import those tables into an Excel worksheet. In Excel, you can reach directly into an Access, dBASE, Microsoft FoxPro, or Microsoft Visual FoxPro database and retrieve data from that database’s tables. ExerciseQuery

8 Summarizing List Data A final, useful aspect of the relationship between spreadsheet programs and databases is that you can create formulas that summarize the values in ranges of cells. it is possible to use many of the data summary functions found in databases into spreadsheet programs, and vice versa, such as SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MAX, and MIN Similar functions are available for use with Excel data lists: DSUM, DAVERAGE, DCOUNT, DMAX, and DMIN.

9 Database and List Management Function FunctionExplanation DCOUNTThe number of records matching your criteria DMAXThe maximum value of those records matching your criteria DSUMThe sum of the values in a field for all records matching your criteria =DSUM(values, "field", criteria)

10 DSUM example ExerciseDataList

11 Chapter 14 Key Points Use the VLOOKUP function to look up a value in one column of a data list and return a value from another column of the same row. You can create database queries to pull selected records from database tables into your Excel worksheets. Excel knows about many types of data sources, so there are few limits on what data you can bring into your worksheets. If you want to limit the data your database queries bring in, you can define filters to act on a query’s results. By using database functions such as DSUM and DAVERAGE, you can summarize the data in an Excel data list. Just as with database queries, you can set criteria to limit the list rows considered by database functions.