Ch. 5 - Database Management Foundations

Tonight, we learned about file organization and file management. We learned that flat files should be avoided at all costs - these are files that are independent of other files with their own unique data file structure. For example, a customer record in marketing versus a customer record in billing may have the same information, but under different record names.

I know firsthand how frustrating this can be. A few months ago, I was working on compiling a list of a few hundred names of students, and matching these up with their ID numbers for my job at the Registrar's Office. It sounds simple enough, except I had two different spreadsheets - one with field names Last Name, First Name, and ID number, and another spreadsheet with only the field Full Name (first name then last name). My supervisor needed me to copy and paste the ID numbers from the first spreadsheet to the correct Full Name on the second spreadsheet. There were hundreds of names here, and I really didn't want to look up each name and ID number and copy and paste a hundred times, so I thought about using Access to form some relationship tables with these spreadsheets and see if it could create a compiled list for me. I'm pretty sure this can be done, but I couldn't make it work..the relationships didn't match up or something, so I did have to end up copying and pasting each ID number.

I hope that when we start learning Access next week, maybe I can learn a way to make this work, if it's possible!

Please see post below for my blog on Tuesday night's class.