MS Access newbie needs advice!

December 30, 2011 5:55 AM

MS Access 2010 Help - I need to create something that allows a small group of people to add records and search records within a database and after much googling I'm thoroughly confused.

For context, the data that we are dealing with is dock times for shipping. Not too many fields, PO number, account number, date and a check mark for if it has been confirmed. I'm having trouble making this work. I can set up to add records however I'm hitting a wall when it comes to searching those records.

Basically I'm looking for resources on the web (or otherwise) or advice specific to the search option. I'd like users (12 max) to be able to search records by one of the fields in the database (most likely PO number). Help?

posted by heavenstobetsy to computers & internet (5 answers total)

I think you can use a wizard to accomplish this. I think you go to forms and something like "create using wizard" or something like that.

Another way, if you are sure this is not going to be a huge database with lots of users, would be to use the wizard to create a form based on a query of the whole dataset (show all records) shows the records in a table-like format, and then create unbound text boxes in the header under each column name. In the "after update" event of each text box, you create a filter for the recordset that uses the contents of the text box to filter the records. I think what this would accomplish would be the drill-down type of search, where a user can open it up and type the relevant data into the empty box in the column of the type of data they want to search for. Then add a double click event procedure on the data portion of the form where double clicking on the right record opens up the "edit PO" form.
posted by gjc at 6:43 AM on December 30, 2011

It's not clear to me how complicated a setup you have. At the simplest level, you can use ctrl+f (I believe cmd+f on a mac) to open the find window and search.

(Note that the default in find/replace is "whole field." You can manually change it to "any part of field" to find, for example, SSN by last 4 digits only. I don't have Access 2010 so I don't know offhand where the option to change the default is, probably under tools somewhere. Google would know.)

Microsoft's Office 2010 website is simultaneously full of tons of great information and super-frustrating to navigate. Maybe some of these will be helpful?

• Decent starter guide to what Access can do/using Access
• Intro to queries in Access 2010
• Find records from specific dates (can be applied to other values besides date)
• Ways to share a database
• Setting up an SQL server database

posted by Wretch729 at 8:20 AM on December 30, 2011

Is access your required solution (ie are you tied to it) ?

And has Access "improved" beyond single-user ? (yes, yes, you *can* use it multi-user, but you can also chew gravel if you want.)
posted by k5.user at 8:52 AM on December 30, 2011

I can't watch this video, but it sounds like you need a parameter query.

Here's how to run the parameter query from a form.

How easy this is for you depends on how much of a newbie you are. Hard to tell from your question.
posted by desjardins at 11:09 AM on December 30, 2011

Here's another video about parameter queries (that did work for me) plus text instructions.
posted by desjardins at 11:13 AM on December 30, 2011