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The following steps will walk you through a database table creation in Access: 1. Start Access 2003 by selecting it from the Windows Start Menu. Access shows up:
2. In the section to the right of the screen, click on the Blank Database option:
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The File New Database dialog box comes up:
3. The database will be stored on a computer as a file. Browse to the directory where you want to save the database file; also type in the file name of your choice in the File Name textbox. In this tutorial you will name the file volunteer.mdb. Then click on the OK button After you have created the new file, you are ready to manipulate the database:
4. Double click the Create table in Design view link on the top center of the screen. You will see a new form:
Here you will define the structure of the database table. This form itself resembles a database table, but do not confuse it with an actual table. This form is merely for you to define the column (or field) names of the table. There are 2 pieces of information required to define a field: you need to give the field a name and a data type; you may also wish to provide a description for the field, although that is not required.
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Hint: It is standard practice to name columns in the form of Firstword_secondword_..._nthword. 3. Tab to the next column titled Data Type. This is a drop down list containing the data types that you can choose from. Since the first name will contain alpha letters, the data type that best suits it is Text, which you will select from the drop down list:
At the bottom of the form, there are additional options that you should pay attention to:
4. The Field Size property specifies the maximum number of characters the field can hold. Leave the value to the default of 50. 5. The Required property specifies whether a value is required to be entered in this field when you add a new record. In this case, we do need the first name of each volunteer, so change the value to Yes. Congratulations, you have created your first field in the table! Hopefully you have understood the steps you took to accomplish this task. You will repeat the same stepsalbeit filling in the appropriate valuesto create the rest of the fields: last name, social security number (SSN), phone number, and birth date. Note: you will not provide a description for any field in this tutorial.
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1. For the last name field, you will choose the same Data Type, Field Size, and Required value as you did for the first name field. When you have filled in all the properties for last name, the form should appear as shown below:
2. Create the SSN field as such: a. Field Name: SSN b. Data Type: Text (the only field that should have the data type Number is if the value would be required for calculation, which SSN does not quality) c. Field Size: 9 (to restrict the entry to 9 digits, which is the standard for all SSNs) d. Required: Yes
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3. Create the phone number field as such: a. Field Name: Phone_number b. Data Type: Text (the only field that should have the data type Number is if the value would be required for calculation, which phone number does not quality) c. Field Size: 50 d. Required: No (perhaps not all volunteers have a phone number)
4. Create the birth date field as such: a. Field Name: Birth_date b. Data Type: Date/Time c. Required: Yes (there may be a law that dictates only people over age 14 may volunteer)
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2. Right click anywhere in this row, and select the Primary Key option:
3. Next, click on the Close button of the Table Creation form (not the Close button of the Access window!). 4. You will be asked if you want to save the table. Click Yes. Now you will be given the opportunity to name the table:
5. Name the table Volunteer and click OK. Hint: It is ok to give the same name to the database and a table. Now you should be taken back to the Database window with the Volunteer table, which we just created.
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2. Enter the following values in the first record: a. First name: John b. Last name: Smith c. SSN: 999999999 d. Phone number: 395-433-3443 e. Birth date: 1/23/1990
3. Click on the next record; notice that since we entered all valid data, no error message was encountered. In the following steps, you will enter invalid data into the fields. Note how Access performs error checking: 4. For the second record, enter all of the same data as you did with the first record. When you finish and try to click outside the record, you get an error message stating that you have entered duplicated data in the Primary Key:
5. Click OK and Press the Escape key on the keyboard to clear the second record. 6. Enter more invalid data into the second record. This time, enter valid data for all fields except Birth date, for which you will enter 12/35/2000. Because December does not have a 35th day, Access will return an error message stating the date entered is not valid:
7. Click OK and Press the Escape key on the keyboard to clear the bogus value in the Birth date field. 8. Enter any valid date for the Birth date field. 9. Close the table, which automatically saves any change made since opening the table.
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Conclusion
This tutorial has walked you through the steps of creating a simple Access database with one table to track client information. As you have seen, databases can provide extremely useful functionality for real world businesses. When the database is used in conjunction with a front-end application to display and enter the data (which is out of scope of this tutorial), the combination brings out the true power of modern business software.