Data hierarchy refers to the systematic organization of data, often in a hierarchical form.

Data
organization involves fields, records, files and so on. [1]
A data field holds a single fact or attribute of an entity. Consider a date field, e.g. "September 19,
2004". This can be treated as a single date field (e.g. birthdate), or 3 fields, namely, month, day of
month and year.
A record is a collection of related fields. An Employee record may contain a name field(s), address
fields, birthdate field and so on.
A file is a collection of related records. If there are 100 employees, then each employee would have
a record (e.g. called Employee Personal Details record) and the collection of 100 such records
would constitute a file (in this case, called Employee Personal Details file).
Files are integrated into a database.[2] This is done using a Database Management System.[3] If there
are other facets of employee data that we wish to capture, then other files such as Employee
Training History file and Employee Work History file could be created as well.
An illustration of the above description is shown in this diagram below.

The following terms are for better clarity.

With reference to the example in the above diagram.
Data field label = Employee Name or EMP_NAME
Data field value = Jeffrey Tan
The above description is a view of data as understood by a user e.g. a person working in Human
Resource Department.
The above structure can be seen in the hierarchical model, which is one way to organize data in a
database.[3]
In terms of data storage, data fields are made of bytes and these in turn are made up of bits.

Data Hierarchy

Computers process all data items as combinations of zeros and ones

Bit smallest data item on a computer, can have values 0 or 1

Byte 8 bits

Characters larger data item

o Consists of decimal digits, letters and special symbols
o Character set set of all characters used to write programs and represent
data items

Unicode characters composed of two bytes

ASCII

Fields a group of characters or bytes that conveys meaning

Record a group of related fields

File a group of related records

Data items processed by computers form a data hierarchy that becomes larger
and more complex from bits to files

Record key identifies a record as belonging to a particular person or entity

used for easy retrieval of specific records

Sequential file file in which records are stored in order by the record-key
field

Database a group of related files

Database Management System a collection of programs designed to create

and manage databases

 Database Components

An Access database consists of several different components. Each component listed is

called anobject.

Listed below are the names and descriptions of the different objects you can use in
Access. This tutorial will focus on the first two objects: tables and queries.

Tables: tables are where the actual data is defined and entered. Tables consist of records
(rows) and fields (columns).

Queries: queries are basically questions about the data in a database. A query consists of
specifications indicating which fields, records, and summaries you want to see from a
database. Queries allow you to extract data based on the criteria you define.

Forms: forms are designed to ease the data entry process. For example, you can create a
data entry form that looks exactly like a paper form . People generally prefer to enter data
into a well-designed form, rather than a table.

Reports: when you want to print records from your database, design a report. Access
even has a wizard to help produce mailing labels.

Pages: a data access page is a special type of Web page designed for viewing and
working with data from the Internet or an intranet. This data is stored in a Microsoft
Access database or a Microsoft SQL Server database.

Macros: a macro is a set of one or more actions that each performs a particular operation,
such as opening a form or printing a report. Macros can help you automate common
tasks. For example, you can run a macro that prints a report when a user clicks a
command button.

Modules: a module is a collection of Visual Basic for Applications declarations and

procedures that are stored together as a unit.