Possible for an Access Database to replace Excel S/S??

[mrcfo]

I've been assigned to clean up aging excel files, but I'm not sure if databases is the way to go...briefly:

* Most users will be relatively computer illiterate -> meaning they know if you point and show them how to use it but will have very little intuition to do stuff themselves. With my limited Access exposure and knowledge, I've heard that breaking dbases but idiodic users is quite simple.

* It's basically for financial data, excel was good at the start but now because the sheets have grown to large and some data needs to be dynamic and rendered in tables, excel has serious limitations.

* Learning curve will be steep but I'm told if you can harness access properly, stuff like vlookups are quite simple in access.

Access seems damn powerful though!

[Broomer]

Just be careful when you try and shift your users from a spreadsheet to a database. Most users will freak due to the constraints placed on a database. With a Spreadsheet, your users might've been used to being able to "generate" a report by copying and pasting elements that they like into another application.
Once you migrate to a database, some of that freedom is removed (with good reasons).
Access isn't a bad starting point since (love them or loave them) Microsoft has fairly good support. Even if it mean having to fork out cash for them.
Where your going to find Access at it's best it's it reporting. Learn to use it well. It's quite powerful (read money spinner).

Issue: really consider how computer literate your users are and be prepared to spend a lot of time to make the front end attractive and usable.

Ka

[cloudzero]

just make sure the database is backed up frequently and the product is not prone to injection attacks

[MarshalStealth]

Have you ever thought of Apple's FileMaker Pro? It is a quite easy database for most DB novices.

[LaiSteve66]

You can form all kinds of forms and reports and shit with Access.

[mrcfo]

Thanks for all the replies, I've decided not to go ahead for the following reasons:

1) I'm not a programmer .... I'm an Accountant by trade with minimal programming knowledge.

2) Too much education would be involved to retrain stuff on even the basics..

3) Excel is probably OK for now....I've managed to split the report or rejig some so its not so difficult to do....

[SunWuKong]

you don't need to use Access unless you are or somebody is writing programs that needs to access the data. i think some of the difficulties you are having with Excel might be solved by using VB macros.

[cloudzero]

^ leet. but dont writing vb macros require programming logic

[Craig]

Originally Posted by cloudzero

^ leet. but dont writing vb macros require programming logic

The notions of "VB" and "logic" shouldn't be allowed in the same sentence.

[cloudzero]

^ha, your one of those vb haters.
i've made a counter-strike aimbot with vb6. its probably because the syntax involves actual words like "then" and "exit". when you use the kernel and user dlls, you can work with pretty low levels. i use it to create personal software because its fast as hell.

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by cloudzero

^ leet. but dont writing vb macros require programming logic

it's not difficult. i think a lot of people who are able to write VB macros (and i've never done it myself) probably learnt it on the job. you can probably learn it from a book or tutorials online. and i think it's a good skill to have for anybody who needs to work heavily with Microsoft Office.

[Craig]

Originally Posted by cloudzero

^ha, your one of those vb haters.
i've made a counter-strike aimbot with vb6. its probably because the syntax involves actual words like "then" and "exit". when you use the kernel and user dlls, you can work with pretty low levels. i use it to create personal software because its fast as hell.

Yeah, it's fast and easy. However, that keeps most of the serious programmers away, ... more so for dealing with the other people that are working as professional VB programmers (or non-VB programmers)as opposed to the language itself. I've used VB6 for prototyping and some quick and dirty small apps way back in 1999. I don't hate the language, but it's just not as powerful and efficient as other viable choices (I'm not in a speed contest, and extreme time constraints are more likely to yield errors and bad quality). Plus, I don't like working on MS Windows.

[MarshalStealth]

MrCFO. Download a starter copy first. See how you like it before trying the Access solution. The learning curve is quite easy. Any questions, go to a filemaker user forum or drop me a msg for another view.

[Broomer]

Originally Posted by Craig

Yeah, it's fast and easy. However, that keeps most of the serious programmers away, ... more so for dealing with the other people that are working as professional VB programmers (or non-VB programmers)as opposed to the language itself. I've used VB6 for prototyping and some quick and dirty small apps way back in 1999. I don't hate the language, but it's just not as powerful and efficient as other viable choices (I'm not in a speed contest, and extreme time constraints are more likely to yield errors and bad quality). Plus, I don't like working on MS Windows.

VB's (the language and the beer) is a beautiful thing: simple yet powerful.
Just keep it simple and rip other people's code off as much as possible.

It's the corner stone of learning to programming.

I had a love/hate relationship with it. I loved in that it made programming easy, I hated it in that it opened up the pandora's box on viruses. Then again, it was going to happen sooner or later.

Ka

[cloudzero]

I was bored on a Sunday and made an AI bejeweled robot player in VB.
It was finding the best combos given the tiles on the screen using recursion.
Looked pretty cool. I should upload a YouTube of it playing.