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[U184]Using Microsoft Access Database

by David Badurina, Dav

While Relational Database Design gets thrown out the window, a terrible side effect of this patchwork idea takes hold inside of most of these organizations. Databases - whether Microsoft Access, SQL Server, Oracle, or MySQL - have a tendency to be amazing thieves when poorly designed to begin with.

If you're faced with a project that's designed poorly, but could be "patched up" to do what you need to, consider the following:

Lost Time:
Making dozens of changes to a poorly designed database in order to "get what you need" out of it is time much better spent invested in fixing the design problems in the first place. Does your organization need hour upon wasted hour of tweaking and hacking apart databases when you could put together an intelligent design, and simply implement some of the same queries, forms, and reports in a new streamlined system that doesn't need to be constantly changed?

Lost Revenue:
Databases love costing you money. While a member of your department is hacking away at a database, trying to bend it to his will in order to get statistics from it that would normally be achieved simply in a properly designed relational database model, you're losing time AND money. The salary you're paying to play with something that needs fixing is money being paid to ignore a problem that's staring you straight in the face.

Consider this analogy. Let's say, every morning you drive your car to work, you have to drive over a bed of nails, and your tires explode. So you turn into a garage every morning and get your tires fixed, only to have the same thing happen again when you take another drive to work.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Certainly it would be easier to fix the heart of the problem.

So why do IT departments and organizations everywhere spend crazy amounts of time and money avoiding the actual problem, instead opting to pay more and fix less every time?

Lost Opportunity:
If you're in a business, you're collecting data for a reason. It's important, it's what your business thrives on. Yet an improperly designed database steals from you the very thing that your business needs in order to flourish - accuracy of information.

Improperly designed relational databases end up creating problems when it comes to looking at statistics, extracting data, or calculating anything. Why risk consistently innaccurate data when fixing the root of the problem can alleviate these woes, and turn your database into an ally instead of an enemy?

These are just some of the reasons it's important for any business to keep databases properly designed, maintained, and used. As soon as there are multiple copies of databases, bad data and patchwork being done, your databases will start stealing from you something far more important than you've ever imagined!

Indexes created in MS Access enableyou to search and sort records faster. To find the data stored in tables, MSAccess primarily looks up the location of data in the index. Corruption inindexes mainly occurs due to MS Office corruption, malicious software likevirus etc. Once the index gets corrupted, you won't be able to view correctrecords saved in your tables. In such situations, you need to restore thedatabase from your recent backup. In case of backup unavailability, you need torepair the indexes by using advanced software.

As a practical scenario, when youattempt to view certain records stored in Employeetable, you discover that the records do not match with the previous ones of thesame table. The main cause behind the mismatch is index corruption.

To resolve the above issue, followthese steps:

Delete all the relationships of the Employee table in the Relationship window.
Now open the Employee table in design view. Delete all the indexes after opening Indexes box.
Select the Employee table in the Navigation Pane. Copy and Paste the table, supply a new name, and choose Structure Only.
Next, you will need to create a query into the problem table. Check all the records and change it to an Append query, instructing MS Access to append to the new table.
Check that all the data is in the new table, and then delete the old Employee table.
Compact the database to get rid of any reference to the problematic table. Click Office Button, select Manage, and select Compact in Access 2007.
Rename the new table so it has the name of the old table.
Recreate the indexes and relationships that you have removed in the above step.

But, if this procedure fails toprovide required data from the Employeetable, then you need to repair the Access index by using advanced application. Such Access Database Repair utilities use powerful scanning methods tocompletely repair and restore all Access database components. With interactiveuser interface, these repair applications act as self-explanatory tools withoutrequiring any sound technical skills.

Stellar Phoenix Access Recovery is the foremost Access Repair tool. This repair utilitycan restore and Repair Accessdatabase objects like indexes, queries, forms, reports, macros and modules. Itis companionable with Microsoft Access 2007, 2003, XP (2002) and 2000. Itsupports Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and NT.

Article Source : Microsoft Office Access

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Both David Badurina & Jp are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

David Badurina has sinced written about articles on various topics from Real Estate, Microsoft Office Access and Sales and Negotiation. David Badurina, President of Blue Moose Technology, LLC, is a relational database design expert specializing in turning hideous data nightmares into efficient, intuitive database applications. Watch David's database design tutorial videos right now at. David Badurina's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.

Jp has sinced written about articles on various topics from Microsoft Office Access, Data Recovery. Jpstellar is a self employed Internet entrepreneur and product reviewer. Our access recovery software completely recovers and access repair database components such as, views, tabl. Jp's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.