Access - Ease of Use and Flexibility of Software

[Val]

We have been using Excel spreadsheets as a database
survey. Someone suggested using Access, however, we heard
that Access is not user-friendly and that there is really
not much flexibility with creating reports and charts.

How accurate is this?

Would appreciate hearing from anyone on this.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

It is a catch 22 kind of question.

For example, would you use Excel in place of a accounting package because
Excel is more flexible? There is no question that Excel is very flexible,
and that is why it is so popular.

However, if you ask a company can all their accounting be done using Excel,
most will say no. Yet, most will tell you that it is VERY HARD TO DEFINE A
ACCOUNTING system, so you need something flexible to make an accounting
system!

So, why not use something super flexibility to do all your accounting?

The answer is lack of structure is a penalty.

The above also applies to ms-access. Ms-access strength is that is it data
management system. So, just like the rigid accounting system, it is still a
better choice then something with no rules to go by. I mean, how can you use
ms-access to write an accounting system when most people will tell you that
it is nearly impossible to define an accounting system? Yet, millions of
people purchase pre-defined accounting systems to run their business with.
The reasons why these people can use a rigid accounting system is that the
system is designed correctly to model the problem at hand.

So, if you can pre-define your survey data, and you know what that survey
data is going to look like, then ms-access is a far better choice then
Excel. Excel's lack of structure is its strength, and weakness at the same
time. For things like sorting and grouping of totals, ms-access is far
better then Excel. It is also much better at combing data from different
test results. However, ms-access is only better if you can sit and define
the problem, and what your data structures need to look like BEFORE you
start.

Often, ms-access is used to summarize the data, and then that SUMMARY data
is then sent to Excel for doing things like graphing, and making pie charts.
In other words, ms-access is far better for the data management part, and
also better at summarizing the results. However, once ms-access has done its
job, then for presenting of data, then often sending the results to Excel
for making graphs is much better.

You would not use Power-Point to do your accounting, but you certainly might
use Power Point after the accounting system has done its job. The same
concepts apply to ms-access verses Excel.

Excel is a summary tool, and NOT a data management tool. Further, ms-access
is what we call a relational database. This fancy term simply means that
ms-access can have data structures that model the real world problem your
trying to solve.

Ms-access is a far better choice *if* you know how to use the tool!

 

[David Straker]

Hi Val,

I started using Access when it was first released and I'm still using it to
develop systems for clients. I do a lot of work these days with Visual Basic
(including Dot NET) and am constantly thinking "It's much easier in Access".
My only real gripe about Access is that it doesn't always allow you to use
custom controls like pre-packaged grids, etc. so I end up writing more
custom code than I really want to.

I've re-architected dozens of Excel spreadsheet "systems" into Access. It's
not a difficult process if you do proper data analysis and follow the rules
for database design. Like every other development software, there is a
learning curve with Access to get to the point where you can build simple
systems, but the curve is very slight for anyone with IT development
experience. It's mostly intuitive. You can also reduce the curve by getting
a few pointers on the best way of doing things like "get report data from
queries - not tables", "design your database so that Access controls the
integrity of your data", etc. You can also achieve very complex systems with
Access but, of course, the more complex the requirement, the more
experienced the developer needs to be. In fact I've just finished another
really complex one that looks more like a Visual Basic application than
Access XP.

Access reporting is very intuitive and flexible for creating even complex
reports. I've found however, that the Microsoft Chart typically used in
Access is OK but very basic - I change to Crystal Reports when I need to get
a decent chart on a report even though Crystal has a very steep learning
curve.

As for end-user comments, I've never had a complaint from a client - they've
always said how much easier the Access system is to use than their old
spreadsheet system used to be. Another major benefit with Access is that it
you can have more than one user maintaining data at a time if you break the
application into a front-end installed on each workstation and a back-end
"server" installed on a network drive.

Hope this helps. If you need more info, feel free to email me direct at
[email protected] - I don't monitor this forum very often - I'm mostly
over in the VB ones

David Straker