Learn to build, edit, and maintain a database in Microsoft Access 2016, complete with tables, reports, forms, macros, and queries to give you fast access to all your important information.
Take control of your data! In this course, you'll learn how to harness the power of Microsoft Access 2016 to organize, store, edit, manage, and report on hundreds of thousands of records.
Through easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions, this course will help you master Access and put it to creative, confident use. You'll develop not only strong Access skills, but a solid understanding of good database design concepts. By the time you've finished the course, you'll know how to organize and assemble an effective database for any kind of information you need to store, document, and manage.
Requirements:
Hardware Requirements:
- This course must be taken on a PC. Macs are not compatible.
Software Requirements:
- PC: Windows 8 or later.
- Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
- Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge is also compatible.
- Microsoft Access 2016 or 2019 (not included in enrollment).
- Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.
Other:
- Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.
Instructional Material Requirements:
The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.
Build, edit, and maintain databases in Microsoft Access 2016 using tables, reports, forms, and queries to give you fast access to all your important information. This hands-on course provides you with the skills to create an effective database for any type of information at home or on the job.
Getting to Know Access 2016
In this lesson, you'll find out what Access is and how individuals, businesses, and organizations use it to store information. You'll begin to build an Access database, including all the components that turn a list of records into reports, forms, and queries. You'll start by opening the application and creating a new database.
Controlling Your Access Table Fields
It's time to lay down the law! In this lesson, you'll impose rules that automatically fill an Access table field with a preset value or that automatically insert the symbols commonly included in phone numbers. You'll also set up rules that only allow certain kinds of data in certain fields. With just a few minutes of work, you can make data entry simpler, clearer, and practically error-free.
Creating Tables and Relationships
In this lesson, you'll create additional tables for the class database, customize them along the way, and then build relationships between them. This all paves the way for later database features, such as reports, queries, and forms that draw from multiple tables in the database.
Building Powerful Forms
In this lesson, you'll use forms for data entry and for viewing records in your tables. You'll meet the Form Wizard, which makes form building fast and easy and allows you to select one or more tables' fields to include. You'll also determine the form layout.
Adding Versatility to Forms
In this lesson, you'll add buttons and controls to forms. You'll also adjust table relationships to support the creation of multi-table forms, which paves the way to creating queries and reports that draw data from more than one table.
Interviewing Your Database
Using queries to sort, filter, and search your database is one of the most important skills you'll master in this course. In this lesson, you'll create queries that search for specific data. You'll also customize how Access displays that data. You'll follow instructions step by step so you gain confidence with the process, and then you'll get to create a query on your own!
Taking Queries to the Next Level
A query that puts specific records in order or finds all the records that have a general piece of information in common is, well, pretty common. Being able to create that kind of query is a great foundation skill, but it won't help you find a very specific record. Nor will it let you search for records within a span of dates or other numeric values. It also won't help you exclude certain records, reducing a large pool of data to just those records you need to see. In this lesson, you'll create queries that give you true power to search your database.
Multi-Table Query Control
In this lesson, you will learn to plan, build, and use queries that pull data from multiple tables simultaneously. This gives you more power over your data and allows you to build the foundation for truly customized reports.
Reporting on Your Tables
Reports are easy to create and customize. In this lesson, you will build a simple report using the Report Wizard. Then you will change the report's appearance, using layout view and design view. These skills are foundational to creating and designing reports for any data in your database.
Creating Query-Based Reports
In this lesson, you will create reports that are based on the results of queries you create to sort and filter your database. Because queries can combine data from multiple tables, filter for specific data, and sort the results, your report reflects just the data that meet the query's criteria.
Mastering Report Design
In this lesson, you'll plan and create a completely customized report, using a specialized query that controls which data the report includes. You'll add fields that perform calculations on your data. You'll customize your report's layout, too, using design view's many tools for controlling the structure and appearance of your data.
Automating Your Database With Macros
Building macros (short programs that perform a series of steps) helps you speed up and create consistency in your more repetitive Access tasks. From opening a form to running a report to building a new record in a table, macros eliminate redundant procedures by turning them into something you can do with one click.
What you will learn
- Learn to build and customize tables to store data
- Learn how you can use relational databases to build forms, generate reports, and search for data with queries across thousands of records in hundreds of tables
- Discover how to use macros to automate repetitive tasks and increase your efficiency
- Develop not only strong Access skills, but a solid understanding of good database design concepts
How you will benefit
- Understand how to organize and assemble an effective database for any kind of information you need to store, document, and manage
- Gain confidence in your use of Microsoft Access
- Become more productive and efficient in organizing, managing, and reporting on data both personally and professionally
Laurie Ulrich
Laurie Ulrich has been writing about and teaching people to use Microsoft Office for more than 20 years—including personally training thousands of students, writing hundreds of training manuals, and authoring and co-authoring more than 30 books on subjects including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access. Her books include 2000-page epics that document every button, bell, and whistle, as well as friendlier introductory and troubleshooting books for new users. Her most recent publication on Microsoft Access is Access 2016 for Dummies. In addition to writing and teaching, Laurie runs her own firm, Limehat & Company, providing training, marketing, graphic design, and web development services to clients throughout the world, with a focus on helping growing companies and non-profit organizations build their brand through effective promotions, outreach, and education.
