Excel Databases - Practical Work

Before creating a database you should consider the needs of the user:

• What data needs to be stored?
• What are the data types?
• What validation checks will need to be performed?
• Do the records need to be sorted in a particular order?
• What searches (filters) will be required?
• What reports (output) will be required?
• Will charts be required?

Identify a user (e.g. second hand car dealer, club membership secretary, job seeker (employee list), book collector, video lender, second hand CD/DVD seller...) Write down the needs as listed above. Write down at least 10 searches that you would want to perform on the database. Of these ten, 3-4 should be simple searches, the rest should be complex searches involving AND or OR. Enter some records and develop the application with suitable features.

For project work you will need to compare use of Excel as a database with Access or some other system such as SQL.