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Access Makes it Easy!
March 10, 2017

Access Makes it Easy!

Catherine Haye | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Access

We used Access to manage data on faculty, courses, course schedules, and rooms. The database was used by one department only but was used across three sites in the same department. The database was updated for each semester and used to provide a wide variety of forms and reports for use by each campus.
  • Queries - the query wizard is an easy to use tool to create SQL queries. Even better is that you can view the query you created in design view which provides you the SQL coding. This can actually be used to teach yourself SQL so you can create queries directly in design view within the database.
  • Forms - you can create easy to use forms for data input and updating. You can make these forms as simple or detailed as you want them to be.
  • Switchboards - this is a fantastic way to set limits on which tables, forms, and reports that multiple users can access. Limiting which records and tables that users are able to get into helps preserve data integrity. The last thing you want is a novice user to delete tables of data from your database!
  • Since 2010 the later versions of Access have steered users towards the predefined database templates. There are Access users who enjoy creating a database using their own defined criteria.
  • Access provided us a positive impact in being able to have data entry done by users with little to no database management experience. This tool allowed us to set up switchboards to navigate to various forms or reports while restricting entrance to all the sections of the database.
I used Oracle for course scheduling and management. I found it very slow, cumbersome and required many more bodies to manage the data "behind the scenes". Generating reports was slow and the reports were often not ready for a 24 hour period. The majority of the times the reports needed a great deal of cleanup after downloads. I find Microsoft Access allows creating simple, elegant reports and is easier to teach staff to navigate through.
Access is a fantastic system to use to protect data integrity in a system with multiple users. Separate tables can be populated with different portions of records and the tables can be linked using unique identifier keys. For example, a table can hold the customer’s address information with a customer number and is linked to a table to hold the customer’s contact information with that same customer number. This is a simple method of preventing the complete removal of any records from the database. The query tool is a wonderful way to become familiar with using SQL. You can use the wizard to create queries and then view the SQL code in the design view of the query. I have improved my skills in building queries through using Access.