Excel vs. Access - please help!!!! Urgent!!!

D

Dimmer

Hi everyone!

I have a very important and urgent question - it's for a internship project
and I have to decide by tomorrow!!
I have to choose between Excel and Access for working on a large data set
that comes as an excel file with many variables and observations for these
variables. We will have to determine many measures (like ratios, percentages
etc...) that will have to be calculated each week
What would you suggest using?

Thanks a bunch

D
 
M

Marvin P. Winterbottom

I'd use access, it's easier to set up and organize reports and qureies.
Excel just has the tabs/sheets to organize things.
 
D

Dimmer

We will have about 90 variables and each variable with about 3,000-5,000
observations per week. Maybe all these variables will be aggregated in much
fewer observations, I am just not sure.

and also we will definitely not use all 90 variables - From the weekly data
we will have to calculate some 10-15 very easy (like ratios between averages
of two variables) reporting measures and draw some graphs.

My boss just wants to have to press one button each week (when getting the
new data file) and get the report. does that sound doable?

Guys, thank you again for saving me
 
A

Arvin Meyer

The one thing not mentioned so far is the file size. Excel can handle 64,000
rows of data, Access significantly more (2 GB of data, or comfortably about
half that amount). For analyzing existing data, Excel is a better tool. For
entering and storing it, Access is the better tool. There is no reason
whatsoever that you can't use them both, even with 1 button. I do
Access/Word/Excel/PowerPoint/MapPoint integration all the time. With
Microsoft Office and a bit of skill, it's a piece of cake.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access Downloads
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access
 
M

Mike Painter

Dimmer said:
Hi everyone!

I have a very important and urgent question - it's for a internship
project and I have to decide by tomorrow!!
I have to choose between Excel and Access for working on a large data
set that comes as an excel file with many variables and observations
for these variables. We will have to determine many measures (like
ratios, percentages etc...) that will have to be calculated each week
What would you suggest using?
Click to expand...

Sounds a bit to much like a homework assignment to me.

If *you* have to make the decision I would guess that the people expect
*you* to have the knowledge needed.
 
D

Dimmer

Hey guys, thank you all for your suggestions - I decided to use excel for
the main project but also work in Access on the side. after all, just like
you said they are fully compatible and can be integrated (well don't know at
this point how but have several weeks to learn it)

So thanks again to all of you
D
 
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