Learn how Microsoft's powerful and award-winning database can help you manage, store, search, analyze, and display important information you've collected about your business, home, community, or any other entity. In this practical and project oriented hands-on workshop, you'll learn how to create tables filled with fields and records. You'll build relationships between the tables to eliminate redundancies and slash data entry time. You'll discover how to achieve huge reductions in data entry errors by setting default values, creating validation rules, and building input masks. You'll find out how to make your database more user-friendly with custom data entry forms, smart lists, and other sophisticated controls. You'll learn how to retrieve exactly what you need from your database with powerful queries and reports, and you'll even start automating routine tasks with labor-saving macros.

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

A Microsoft Access database is made up of seven interrelated components: tables, fields, records, forms, queries, reports, and macros. In today's lesson, you'll become familiar with each of these components and--perhaps more importantly--you'll learn how each component can help you successfully collect and manage a wide variety of business, personal, or scientific data. And you'll get hands-on experience building tables; creating fields; and manipulating records.

Friday - Lesson 02

Today, you're going to learn how to take advantage of a variety of powerful customization options that will help you simplify the process of adding data to an Access table. You'll get hands-on experience with validation rules, default values, and input masks—time-saving tools that will improve your productivity while increasing the accuracy and reliability of the data you collect.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

This lesson will literally slash the amount of time you spend performing data entry tasks. You'll deftly sidestep an issue that often plagues Access novices: how to avoid typing and re-typing the same pieces of information over and over again in each of the many tables that make up your database. Today, you'll discover the powerful and time-saving secret of table relationships.

Friday - Lesson 04

In this lesson, we'll give your database a professional makeover. Your database will achieve new levels of attractiveness and sophistication with the introduction of powerful forms. You'll find that forms make it faster, easier, and more pleasant for you to review, add, edit, or remove the information in your tables.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

Today, you'll embellish your forms with powerful custom controls like buttons and combo boxes. These custom controls can help you automate tasks you might otherwise find difficult or time-consuming to carry out manually. As a result, you'll work at greater efficiencies and with fewer opportunities for error.

Friday - Lesson 06

One reason we create a database is so we have a place to store information that we've collected. We store data in a database because we know that we will need to review that information again. By squirreling the data away today, we give ourselves future opportunities to review, search, analyze, sort, and subtotal that information as needed. Today, you'll discover how to use an Access query to scan a vast collection of data and retrieve only the exact pieces of information that you require.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

In today's lesson, you'll overcome all those thorny query issues that often stump both beginning and advanced Access users. You'll learn how to scan the entirety of your database for a single word (or even a tiny word fragment) with pinpoint precision. You'll find out how to seek out a range of dates or numbers instead of placing all your bets on a futile and time-consuming search for a single value. And if you ever find yourself with a better understanding of what you don't want to see than what you do, you'll understand how to perform a reverse query.

Friday - Lesson 08

In a well-designed database, information will be evenly distributed across multiple tables. The advantages of this distributed approach are too numerous to elucidate here, but the approach does raise one important question: is there any way to take all of the information that has been scattered across several tables and bring it together in one place? Fortunately, there is a simple solution. Today, you'll receive ample opportunities to try your hand at combining information from an assortment of tables into a single pool of data.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

If you really want to show off the data in your database, you'll want to showcase it with a report. A report will help you organize and format your data, making it more accessible and more attractive. There really is only one surefire way to understand what a report is and what it can do for you: you'll just have to create one. And that's exactly what you're going to do in today's lesson.

Friday - Lesson 10

In our last lesson, you learned how to convert a table filled with raw information into a handsome, well-organized report suitable for printing. But what if you want to create a report that only shows some, instead of all, of the information contained within a table? Is that even possible? You'll find out in today's lesson.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

Access comes with a number of pre-formatted reports designed to meet just about any conceivable need. But there will be rare occasions when you want to produce a report that is a little, well, different. A report that goes beyond the norm. A report that communicates with its reader in a new and unique way. In today's lesson, you'll learn how you can use the Report Design tool to whip up your very own custom reports from scratch.

Friday - Lesson 12

In this, our final lesson, you'll learn all about Access macros. An Access macro can automate just about any database activity you can imagine, from running queries to printing reports to opening and closing forms or tables. However, a macro can perform these activities at a much higher rate of speed and with far more accuracy than you or I could ever manage to muster. This is one of the most popular and eye-opening lessons in the course, covering a fascinating topic you won't want to miss.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Craig Power.

Craig Power has worked in adult continuing education for more than 18 years. A UCLA graduate, he created custom accounting software for state and local governments; developed an online course delivery and marketing platform currently used by more than 1,500 colleges and universities in the US, Canada, and Australia; developed an interactive cellular biology video for the Los Angeles Unified School District; taught college-level information technology courses; started and grew a thriving small business; and served as an executive with a large academic publishing corporation.

Requirements:

Microsoft Windows Vista or XP, Microsoft Access 2007 or Microsoft Office Professional 2007 (please be sure to install this software on your computer before the course begins), Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

Note: This course is not suitable for Macintosh users, nor for users of any of older versions of Microsoft Access.

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