Basic guide to using Microsoft Access queries

As the most popular desktop database system in the world, Microsoft (MS) Access offers plenty of great functionalities.

Database developers love MS Access due to its scalability, while users love it for its ease of use.rnThe fact that MS Access is part of Microsoft Office suite is also one of its strongest points, because it can easily integrate with other productivity software like MS Word, Excel and Power point. To get the most of Microsoft Access, you may have to take up a training program so that you can experience the maximum benefits for yourself and the company. One of the things that you will want to learn is the use of MS Access queries.

If you are not yet familiar with MS Access queries, here’s a little bit of explanation. A query is simply the term used when you want to mine some information from your database. Let’s say you want to know how many units of computers you sold last year, creating an MS Access query will get you this information. In essence, queries are questions that your data has the answers for. While there are many simple queries to choose from, some queries can be quite complex when summing and grouping of data are what you after.

These are some useful tips to extract data the most efficient way from queries.rnThese tips should help you get by easier.

1. To help you identify the qualifiers that you can use, you should know the data types for each field on your Microsoft Access database, especially those that you want to include in your report. For example, Date, Number or Text.
2. To make sure that you have all the fields required, get a piece of paper and write all the names of the tablets and their fields that you want on your final query report. This way – you can see how they relate.
3. When querying, you can add the fields first without marking any criteria. This test query will help you get the total number of records being shown. This will also help you confirm that there’s no error.
4. You can then add one criteria option one at a time. This will save you time should you encounter any error – as you can pinpoint the culprit easily.

From the tips above, it is obvious how important setting the right criteria is when filtering the data. To become more proficient in this aspect of Microsoft Access, you will need a good knowledge base. Creating a good database system is one thing – having the ability to pull those data using queries is a whole different ballgame. Don’t hesitate to learn more of MS Access and its powerful query feature by taking a Microsoft Access training program, because it is no doubt the purpose and life of MS Access.