Question

Topic: Other

Use Of Microsoft Access For Non-programmers

Posted by Anonymous on 8/9/2007 at 3:35 PM ET 25 Points
Hi All!
I know nothing about MS Access, just that it is a good database program. I would like to know if it can be used for maintaining customer lists and how? There are different lists and I think that MS Access can be helpful marketing tool. I can get training in this software but would need to justify how it'll help.
Any suggestions?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 8/9/2007 at 3:38 PM Member
    how many customers are you looking to maintain and how many lists?
  • Posted on 8/9/2007 at 3:40 PM Author
    there are 3-4 separate lists and approximately 2000 customers. Thanks,
  • Posted on 8/9/2007 at 3:55 PM Author
    Why are companies using Access to mainitain data? I understand that excel is a very powerful tool but what is it that access does that excel cannot do?
    Is merging lists easier (to avoid duplicate records)?
  • Posted by Tracey on 8/9/2007 at 4:12 PM Accepted
    Access is nice because you can customize your database. For instance, you might want to have a field to record your contacts' birthdays. You could create a field in Access and have the ability to sort on it.

    The big difference with Access is that it is a relational database. Not as powerful/expensive as big CRM solutions... but if you know what you're doing, you can link contact records to each other in fairly complex ways. For example, I created an Access db for tradeshows. I had one list of tradeshow records, and one list of staff records. I could tie a tradeshow record to the staffpeople records... so I could look up things like how much salespeople spent at a particular show, and also look up how much a salesperson spent at all tradeshows they attended. A caution though, it does take a lot of learning to create a relational database if you're not a programmer type.

    I'd recommend watching some demos online (usually available on the website). Make a thorough list of your "must have" needs and "nice to have" features.
  • Posted on 8/9/2007 at 4:36 PM Author
    Tracey, so can you take different lists and drop it all in access without having any duplicates? Do you have to enter each record?
    I use excel and that lets me make pivot tables and that gives me all that you described ablove. However, since I have different lists, I cannot join that info together. So, does access lets you do that?
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