Microsoft Access is a relational database management system (RDBMS) used by individuals and small business. Watch the presentation video below:
- It is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft ´
- It’s part of the Microsoft Office suite or sold separately
- Microsoft Access provides a quick and easy way to develop databases
- It is well suited for individuals and small business
- It is the most popular desktop database on the market today
- MS Access provides thousands of templates for a prebuilt database
- MS Access offers an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI)
- We can use SQL code to analyze data quickly
- Advanced users can automate tasks using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code
What can we do in MS Access?
- Create and maintain databases using tables
- Data entry in the tables can be validated easily
- Create and run queries to get information from the data
- MS Access forms allow users to enter data and search the database
- We can generate reports for presentations and print-outs
- We can automate repetitive tasks using macros
- Import and export data from external sources like Excel spreadsheets, CSV files and other databases
What are the Benefits of Access?
- Non-technical users can create and maintain a database
- Easy to learn – especially for users of Microsoft Office
- “Wizards” guide us step-by-step for performing a task like table creation
- No coding required due to the intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI)
- Forms for data entry can be created effortlessly
- Reports can be generated simply and quickly ´Thousands of free templates for databases are available
What are the limitations of Microsoft Access?
- It is not an enterprise solution
- Access databases can have a maximum size of 2 Gigabytes
- An Access database has a limit of 255 concurrent users
Here is a screen-shot of an inventory template in MS Access:
Further Reading: