In preparation for this project, I learned several formatting skills to create databases in Access. In this I have learned how to manipulate the data into usable forms, queries, and reports. This type of manipulation is useful when you need to dissect a large set of data and turn it into useful information. For this project, we needed to narrow down the list of 1000 members into a section that included those members who let the company within the last six months. In the business world, this is a very helpful tool to have in order to keep track of inventory, customers, shopping tendencies, etc...
The hardest aspect of this project, for me, was to ensure that the data was entered in the correct format; this being text, date/time, etc. An additional problem that I encountered was trying to enter in the correct language to get the software to do what I was looking for. An example of this was trying to narrow down the data by the dates between 5/6/2011 and 11/6/2011.
One way that this software could be enhanced would be to have a “cheat sheet” if you will of the proper structure to input for different types of criteria and validation. When a person spends more time trying to properly enter in the criteria then they have with the entire database, the helpful aspects of the system are lost. Within this software, there are help functions that cover some of the issues that you might run across, however the wording within this help box is much too tech driven and the average person can run into difficulties rather than actually being helped.
In elementary school we all used the marble notebooks and inside these notebooks, there were tables for conversions and times tables. This is the sort of ‘cheat sheet” that I am referring to that has formatting techniques clearly written. Within Excel, there is the function key to help get you on your way, to enhance the Access software; the writers should implement the same type of function key.
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