What is a Table?
Each table stores information about a single entity or topic, such as customers or orders. Data is organized in each table into columns or fields and rows or records. This complete group of tables can be thought of as individual building blocks that represent the entire database.
If you have worked with spreadsheets in the past, you'll find database tables extremely similar. When you use a separate table for each entity or topic, you store that data only once. As a result, your database runs more efficiently and the potential for data entry errors and redundancy is reduced.
If you will be using your data solely in Microsoft Access, you should use the data import functionality within Access to create tables. You can also modify the imported data in the tables to meet your individual needs the same way you can modify any other Access table.
Designing Tables in a Database
Database design is critical to the efficient functionality of any database. If the database is designed properly, the database will run faster, hold more data, require less maintenance and have a lower risk of becoming corrupt.
If you would like to create a very simple database or perhaps one that is more complex in nature, please contact us. Our team of experts can create a professional relational database to meet your individual needs.
There are several table design techniques that can be used to increase the display of table data that contains many rows and fields. One of the ways is to use numeric index pointers when performing lookup lists. Another table design technique is the use of the auto number field to link tables to related tables.
In the past, a primary key was created based on one or several data fields in a table. These primary key fields were duplicated in subordinate tables. Sometime, a new field was created to hold the actual concatenated values of the multiple-field primary key which resulted in multiple copies of multiple fields of data throughout the database. If one field in the primary key changed, the result was often a time consuming and dangerous automatic cascading update which required extreme normalization techniques to ensure that the proper records were updated.
The current technique is to not remove the primary key but to create a more efficient alternate (or pseudo) key by using the auto number field. The auto number field is independent of the actual data in the table and therefore never requires a cascading update. As a result, when the primary key field data changes, it only changes in one place since it only exists in a single table. The auto number field is often set as the table's primary key and therefore is indexed, no duplicates. Alternatively, real user-data is used to create the primary key in the table design.
If you would like to view a few Access table design example, please click on the links below:
Getting to Other Data
Access can connect to a variety of other database and data formats. Please click on the link below for more information: