Access or Excel

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Michelle - 23 Jan 2008 00:38 GMT

I work for agency that runs weekly classes at 4 different locations for
people arrested for dui. Each week is a new class of students for each
location. We create a roster for each class in Excel that is printed out for
use by the counselors. The roster contains a lot of detailed info about each
student. We desparately need a database of all our students. I want to
create a database that will automatically create these weekly rosters as we
update the database. What is the best program for this - Excel or Access?
My Excel skills are above average. My Access skills are zero, but I am a
quick study. We are using Windows XP at my office so the versions of these
programs would be whatever came with XP. Thank you.

Signature

Michelle

Reply to this Message

NetworkTrade - 23 Jan 2008 02:48 GMT

definitely Access

Excel excels in math processes....doesn't sound like you need a spread
sheet....

finding and reporting data is the database's purpose...

Signature

NTC

> I work for agency that runs weekly classes at 4 different locations for
> people arrested for dui. Each week is a new class of students for each
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> quick study. We are using Windows XP at my office so the versions of these
> programs would be whatever came with XP. Thank you.

Reply to this Message

John W. Vinson - 23 Jan 2008 05:07 GMT

>I work for agency that runs weekly classes at 4 different locations for
>people arrested for dui. Each week is a new class of students for each
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>quick study. We are using Windows XP at my office so the versions of these
>programs would be whatever came with XP. Thank you.

Access comes with Office XP Pro - it does NOT come with Windows, or even with
the basic Office package.

Access would indeed be a preferable tool; you can do some sort of database-ish
things in Excel (and some spreadsheetish things in Access for that matter),
but just because you can drive nails with a crescent wrench doesn't mean it's
a good hammer!

Access does have a STEEP learning curve, primarily getting your head around
the concept of relational tables. It's great when you're there but it's a lot
more work than learning basic Excel. See some of the resources 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

John W. Vinson [MVP]

Reply to this Message