Advanced Access (ACC201)

This course offers an in-depth exploration of Microsoft Access, aimed at providing you with advanced skills for managing and manipulating databases effectively. Perfect for businesses looking to upskill their employees, this course ensures you gain a robust understanding of Access functionalities and best practices, allowing for efficient database management and operations.

We start with an overview of Relationships, highlighting the importance of referential integrity and how to formalize relationships between tables. You'll review key concepts, understand different data types and relationships, and get practical experience through exercises on creating relationships.

Next, you'll engage with Queries. This segment covers the Query Design View and dives into select queries, including those with criteria. You’ll explore logical operators, parameter queries, and action queries, such as make table, append, update, and delete queries. This lesson also includes creating crosstab queries and managing queries through exercises.

The Table Functions lesson is designed to teach you how to import data and link tables from external sources. You’ll also learn to import tables from other databases and work with templates and application parts. Exercises will provide hands-on experience with importing and exporting data to and from Excel.

In the section on Forms, you’ll learn to navigate Design View. You’ll explore adding headers, footers, logos, titles, and fields to a form, as well as arranging and spacing objects. The lesson also covers formatting forms, setting tab orders, and creating forms with application parts and subforms. Practical exercises will help you create and alter forms effectively.

The course then transitions into Reports, teaching you how to design reports and work with various report sections, including headers, footers, and detail sections. You’ll learn to add fields and calculated fields, arrange and resize the detail section, group and sort data, and set properties on a report. From adding special fields to printing and formatting reports, this lesson covers it all, reinforced with exercises to apply your learning.

Moving on to Macros, you’ll get acquainted with the basics of macros in Access. You’ll learn to open tables, forms, and reports, run queries, and print reports using macros. Hands-on exercises will provide practice in creating and running simple macros.

The course concludes with Completing the Desktop Application, where you’ll learn to create and manage navigation forms, run macros from them, and set the navigation form as the default form. Lessons will also cover splitting the database, adding encryption with passwords, distributing the front-end database, and performing essential database maintenance tasks like compact and repair, backup/recovery, and maintaining backward compatibility. Practical exercises will help solidify these skills.

By the end of this course, you'll be well-equipped to handle advanced database tasks using Microsoft Access, from creating complex queries and advanced forms to designing detailed reports and automating tasks with macros. Your enhanced skills will contribute to more efficient and effective database management within your organization.