Can someone direct me to a resource that gives insight or pointers on
the question of when it is better to use Access and when is it better
to use XL?
I presume you mean the spreadsheet software Excel?
If you want a database, use Access.
If you want a spreadsheet, use Excel.
As for the decision of whether a spreadsheet or a database application is more
appropriate for a specific business requirement, that takes some study and
understanding of what these two ways of handling data actually are. In short,
if you want to do dynamic calculations, sums and correlations, accounting-type
operations, an Excel spreadsheet would be indicated; if you have sets of
homogenous data that you want to enter, sort, report, and search, a database
like Access would be better. There are many cases where you want to do some of
both - and you *can* do sorting, searching, and handle lists of data in Excel,
and you can do calculations, sums, and accounting type operations in Access.
It's a question of emphasis - and you may well end up using both programs on
the same data.
John W. Vinson [MVP]
I presume you mean the spreadsheet software Excel?
If you want a database, use Access.
If you want a spreadsheet, use Excel.
As for the decision of whether a spreadsheet or a database application is more
appropriate for a specific business requirement, that takes some study and
understanding of what these two ways of handling data actually are. In short,
if you want to do dynamic calculations, sums and correlations, accounting-type
operations, an Excel spreadsheet would be indicated; if you have sets of
homogenous data that you want to enter, sort, report, and search, a database
like Access would be better. There are many cases where you want to do some of
both - and you *can* do sorting, searching, and handle lists of data in Excel,
and you can do calculations, sums, and accounting type operations in Access.
It's a question of emphasis - and you may well end up using both programs on
the same data.
John W. Vinson [MVP]
Actually the more I think about it, the more I realize I am looking
for something a little more quantitative. Specifically, imagine I had
to persuade a sceptical supervisor that Access' sorting, reporting,
and filtering capabilities are stronger than Excel. I would like to
be able to go into details of _why_ one is better than the other
depending on task and data character in addition to _that_ one is
better.
If you want to sort, report, and filter, then Access is almost surely the
better tool. That's what databases are FOR.
I don't have any specific quantitative analyses, but you may be able to find
something useful at:
Jeff Conrad's resources page:http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/accessjunkie/resources.html
The Access Web resources page:http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html
A free tutorial written by Crystal (MS Access MVP):http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html
MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials
Tony Toews' Access tips:
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access
John W. Vinson [MVP]