In this post, am going to demonstrate to you the easiest steps ever needed to create a Microsoft Access database for your company software. The sample database we shall create is a simple database to hold phone numbers and names.
Database can be seen as an organized collection of information or records related to a particular field stored in a computer device.
Take for instance, an institution management system; the database will comprise of students information, examination performance, lecturers information e.t.c. no doubt, all these are related.
But it will be difficult for such database to hold records of manufacturing organization where information such as students details are not needed.
Microsoft Access is a Database Management System(DBMS) that uses Microsoft Jet Database Engine for communication between frontend software.
Microsoft access can help you analyze large amounts of information, and manage data efficiently as well as offers almost all the functionality of a database and the programming capabilities to create easy to navigate screens forms.
In course of the course, you shall come across the following terms.
Datatypes are the properties of each field. Every field has one datatype like memo, text, number, date, etc.
A table is a database object that stores information using Row & Column format. Table columns name must not be ambiguous. Meaning each column in a table must have a unique name.
We can also define Primary Key in a table.
A primary key uniquely identifies each record in a table. Primary keys are not allowed to be NULL and it must contains UNIQUE values. A table can have only ONE primary key; and in the table, this primary key can consist of single or multiple columns (fields).
The following steps will guide you on how to create a database using ms access or steps in creating a database in ms access whichever way you may ask the question, this post answer them all. So follow these steps;
First, before we start creating the database, you should know how to launch the database management system (MS Access)
-
Click on the 'Windows' icon. You will find the list of installed programs.
- Locate and click on Access Icon and this will cause the window below to appear
- Press "Esc" key to can the upper form.
Now that you have known how to load the ms access, let us create the database. Which now take us to
There are two ways to create Database in MS Access: Create Database from Template and Create a Blank Database
For the purpose of this post, am creating blank database which you should also do the same.
In continuation of the steps on "how to load ms access" above, you should see blank database on the displayed window.
- Click on the 'Blank Database' and a fiile name box will appear at the right side of the window with Database as the file default name as shown below
- Enter the file name for the database in this case "phonebookdatabase" at the area marked with blue pen as shown above
- Click on the Location broswer icon as circled on red on the picture above and a dialogue box will appear
You can create database either in 2002-2003 format, 2007 format or any other format, but for the purpose of this study, we are using 2002-2003 format.
- From the dialogue box that appears, click on the "Save as type" drop down and select "Microsoft Access Database (2002-2003) format" then click "Ok" button
- Click on 'Create.'
Now, you have successfully created a database and that takes us to another steps called
Still on the continuation of the preceding steps, you should see a default created Table with the name Table 1 but should in case you didn't see anything like that, no need to panic just click on Create icon from the menu bar, then click on Table and you are good to go.
Microsoft access Database Table can be created in two ways either through Design View or Datasheet.
But for the sake of this post, we are using with Design View.
So if you check the window before you, and the left of the window, you should see Table 1. Now follow the these steps
- Right click on the Table 1 and click on "Design View" as shown below.
- And a dialogue box as shown below will appear asking for the Table name. Now enter the table name in this case "tblphonebook"
- Click on "Ok" and a similar window as depicted with the below picture will appear
- Enter the field names and specify data types in this case, both fields data types are Text
Field names are;
| Field Name |
Data Type |
| pname |
Text |
| phonenumber |
Text |
- Now press Ctrl+S or click on Save icon from the menu bar.
To add records to the database manually, double click the table name from the left side of the window to open up the data entry window, then start entry your information.
To see a program where this database was connected to a frontend application, check
linking database to visual basic.net
That is all. Thanks for reading!