ELECTRONIC FILE MANAGEMENT by Debbie Young

Electronic what? Electronic File Management…what is it?

Let’s take a look.  You may hear words like  Field  Record  Table  What is the relationship between these?  How does this help us manage our data?

A Table by the Window? Imagine you are dining out at a fine restaurant. The table is set with dinner plates, silver, napkins, glasses… Should you reach across the table to grab a fork? Which glass do you use?

Excuse me, that’s my glass…  Of course, you know that each person has their own place setting at the table!  The parts of your place setting are related to you…  Your fork  Your napkin  Your plate  Your glass

So, what’s my point?  The pieces of your place setting (fork, knife, plate) are like pieces of information, or “fields” of data, in a record.  Your place setting is your “record”. Your database record contains information related to you!  And, much like your place setting, your database record is held by a “table”.

Data  Within a record, the pieces of information, called fields or columns, may include things like  First Name  Last Name  Phone number  SSN  Street Address  City

Pulling It All Together…  Unless you are dining alone, there are usually place settings for several people.  Similarly, a database is designed to hold records for many people – there is a record, or row, for John, for Jim, etc.  Those records are stored in a table.

Follow along.  Next I’ll demonstrate how to set up a basic table in Access.  Imagine...you and your niece sell handmade quill boxes and black ash baskets. Business had grown tremendously since some of your items were featured on a friend’s web site. You need to move your customer records from paper to an electronic database...click on the link below. 

Give it a try...  Now you do it.  Click the words “Student Database”, below, to open a sample database.  Create a new table.  Name your fields (Last Name, First Name, Phone, etc.)  Define each field type – make them all “text” for now.  If you get stuck, just minimize the database and navigate back here. Hit the “save” button when you are done.  You can review the demonstration by clicking “Review”, below. Review Student Database

Let’s Review…  A table holds records.  Each record, sometimes referred to as a row, contains pieces of information related to one individual or subject.  The pieces of information (like last name, first name, address, etc.) are called fields or columns.  A table contains many records and each record contains fields.

Check for Understanding These are two examples of a A. Field Field B. Record Record C. Table Table

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Check for Understanding This is an example of a A. Field Field B. Record Record C. Table Table

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Check for Understanding This example shows a list of A. Table Names Table Names B. Customer Records Customer Records C. Field Names Field Names

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Are you ready to move on?  If you feel comfortable with creating a table, and naming and defining fields  If you would like to review everything  If you would like to see another database demonstration click here.

Let’s make another table.  I’ll demonstrate how to set up a basic table. This table will list some of the baskets that you sell...

Data entered. What’s next?  Let’s take a look at two ways we can make our data more useful and more accessible.  Sort  Filter

Sorting  Have you ever wanted to find a name in the Phone Book? It’s easy, right?  Names in the Phone Book are alphabetized, or sorted, by last name, then first name. How can we accomplish this is our electronic database?  What if we don’t care about our records being alphabetized by name? Maybe we want to sort by city or state?

Let’s Sort  Follow along as I show you some ways to sort data in our table...click on the link below. 

Now you try Sorting...  Click the words “Student Database” to open another sample database; now open the table “Customers”.Student Database  Try to sort the Last Name column in “ascending”.  Now sort it “descending”. Do you see it change?  Now sort the city or state. If you want to, you can sort the last name again.  Close the database when you are done. Does it ask you if you want to save the changes? Click “no” and close it. Let’s understand why...

“Save changes to design?”  When you entered data (name, address, city, state) into your table, it “saved” as soon as you entered it.  In Access, you do not need to click “save” to save the data you enter.  On the other hand, when you sort or filter data, you are changing the “design” of your table.  You will always be asked if you want to save the changes to your design. Usually you can answer “no” because it probably doesn’t matter how it is sorted, and, saving a “filter” can make data appear to be missing when you come back to it later.  Click “review” to review sorting. Review

Filter  Finding a name that is alphabetized in the Phone Book may be easy, but what if you weren’t sure of the name?  What if you only knew the first few letters? Or only knew the first name?  How about if you wanted ALL the names in a certain city?  This is when a technique called filtering is extremely useful.

Let’s Filter  Follow along as I show you some ways to filter data in our table...click on the link below. 

Now you try Filtering...  Click the words “Student Database” to open another sample database; now open the table “Customers”.Student Database  Apply a filter to look for records from the City of Lansing. Do you only see “Lansing” records? How many do you have?  Now “unfilter”.  Play with it...apply the filter to other fields.  When you are done, close the table and database. Remember: do not save changes.

Check for Understanding This example shows records that are A. Entered incorrectly Entered incorrectly B. Filtered by State:Utah Filtered by State:Utah C. Sorted by City Sorted by City

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Check for Understanding This example shows records that are A. Filtered by Last Name Filtered by Last Name B. No longer valid No longer valid C. Sorted by customer ID Sorted by customer ID

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The End  Great Job! You have completed this portion of Electronic File Management.  For additional resources check out  Read, Judith and Mary Lea Ginn. Records Management 8e. South-Western Cengage Learning  South-Western web site at  ARMA International at