Introduction to Access

ISYS 363

Creating a New Database

• MS Office button/New– Blank database– New database name and location

Access Objects

• Tables– Create a new table: Create/Table Design– Open a table:

• Double click the table name

– Home/View:• Datasheet view• Design view

• Queries– Create a new query: Create/Query Design

• Others: Forms, Reports, Pages

Creating a Table• Create/Table Design:

– Field name– Field data type

• Create table by using table templates– Create/Table Templates/select template

• Create a primary key– Never let Access to create a primary key for

you.– How to create a composite key?

• Enter data

Create a new Query

• Create/Query design/Show table– Select fields– Add criteria

• Sorting

• Total and subtotal– Query design tools/Total– A Total row is added to the design view– Select function from the total row’s dropdown

list

Creating a New Form

• Using Form Wizard– Create/More Forms/Form Wizard

Querying Database

Basic Query Language Operations

• Selection

• Projection

• Join

• Aggregates: Max, Min, Sum, Avg, Count– Totals and SubTotals– GroupBy

• Calculated fields

Selection

• Selection operation retrieves records that satisfy user’s criteria.

Projection

• Projection operation defines a vertical subset of a table and retrieves only the specified fields.

Join

• The two tables must have common attributes:– Key and foreign key.

• Combines two tables to form a new table where records of the two tables are combined if the common attributes have the same value.

Join Example

Faculty File: FID FnameF1 ChaoF2 SmithF5 Boxer

Student File:SID Sname FIDS1 Peter F1S2 Paul F2S3 Smith F1

Faculty Join Student =

Join Example

Student File:SID Sname FIDS1 Peter

F1S2 Paul

F2S3 Smith

F1

StudentCourse File:SIDCIDS1ISYS263

S1Acct101S3ISYS363S2ISYS263S2Fin350S2Acct101

Course File:CID Cname

UnitsISYS263 IS Intro 3ISYS363 MIS Intro

3Acct101 accounting

3Fin350 Finance Intro

3

(Student Join StudentCourse) Join Course

Aggregate Functions

• Max, Min, Sum, Count, Avg

• QueryTools/Totals

• Ex. Student: SID,Sname, GPA, Sex, Major– How many students in this University?– What is the overall average GPA?

Aggregates by Group

– How many students in each major?– Compare male students and female students

average GPA.

Examples

• Customer: CID, Cname, City, Rating• Orders: OID, Odate, SalesPerson, CID• Queries:

– Find customers live in San Francisco.– Produce a customer report that shows CID, Cname,

and Rating.– Number of customers in each city

• City, NumbeOfCustomers

– Produce a report that shows the number of orders for each customer:

• CID, Cname, TotalNumberOfOrders

University Database

ERD Notations

Student Account

Faculty Course

Has1 1

EnrollM MAdvise

M

1

TeachMM

SID Sname Major SID Balance

FID Fname CID CnameUnitsPhone

Grade

Examples• Q1: Display students’ ID, name and account

balance who owe university more than $2000.

• Q2: Display student’s ID, name and total units.

• Q3: Find students taking at least 9 units and display their ID, Name and total units.

• Q4: Display CID, Cname, SID, Sname• Q5: Display CID, Cname, number of

students in each course.• Q6: Display faculty’s name and phone if the

faculty advises at least three students.

Order Processing Database Examples

• Order Processing Database:– Customer, Orders, OrderDetail, Product– MIS report– Total amount for each order– Criteria applied to subtotal

Calculated Fields

• Rename a field:– NewName:OldName

• Define a calculated field:– Tax:salary*.15– Age:Year(Now()) – Year(DOB)– IIF function

Criteria

• >, >=, <, <=, =, <>

• Range: BETWEEN 1/1/03 AND 12/31/03

• Wildcard:– ? – match any one character

• “K?NG”

– * - Match any number of characters• “C*”

Sorting

• One field sorting

• Two fields sorting

Other Queries

• Update query:– Query tools/Design/Query type/Update

• Delete query

• Parameter query

• CrossTab query– Crosstab row

Access Tools for Import/Export

• Import from Excel:– The first row of Excel’s list should contain field

names– External Data/Import/Excel

• Export to Excel:– External Data/Export/Excel

Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)

• Provide a standard to retrieve data from a database.

• It manages one or more "database drivers“ that enables the communication between database and applications.

• To access a database, we use ODBC facilities to define a ODBC data source name for the database.