Should I use Access or Excel?

[Guest]

I work in a company where Access is just starting to be utilized... and now all of a sudden everyone wants to use it. Since I am one of the few people with some experience (albeit limited!) I am being asked to look at their existing methods (often Excel) to see if Access can create greater efficiencies. Clearly if there is a great deal of statistical work I would use excel, and if it's a lot of data I can see Access... but many of their situations seem to be somewhere in the middle. Where can I get some help with deciding the best program for the situation at hand?

 

[Rick B]

Until you get fairly experienced, I'd say try it both ways on a few and see
which is easier. Think about the work to build a database vs. a spreadsheet
and the amount of work to enter data. Is this offset by the report
capabilities, more flexible sharing of data, and being able to build quick
ad-hoc queries?

Also, think about data structure. There are many tasks out there that just
aren't formatted into logical records.

I really think you can accomplish most task in either application. Comfort
of use and personal preference are big factors. I probably build things in
Access that other might do in Excel simply because I like the extra edits
and error-checking you can get in your data entry and I like the possibility
to expand. On the other hand, if a user will manipulate the data often and
is not familiar with Access, I may do it in Excel. I have several Excel
sheets with lookups and macros and buttons to try to do what could easily be
done in Access simply because the users prefer it.

Rick B



I work in a company where Access is just starting to be utilized... and now
all of a sudden everyone wants to use it. Since I am one of the few people
with some experience (albeit limited!) I am being asked to look at their
existing methods (often Excel) to see if Access can create greater
efficiencies. Clearly if there is a great deal of statistical work I would
use excel, and if it's a lot of data I can see Access... but many of their
situations seem to be somewhere in the middle. Where can I get some help
with deciding the best program for the situation at hand?

 

[Rolls]

Probably the first priority to upgrade from Excel would be any app where
there is matching of records, not easily done in Excel, followed by sorting.
The type of operation that is a manual cut-paste in Excel and a "join" in
Access.

 

[hcj]

Excellent question! Good points made by all so far, and
you'll likely get more.
I often decide based on whether the application is
for "history" or for looking at the "big picture". If you
want to keep records, use Access. If you want to see
what's going on at the moment, use Excel. If you keep
1000's of records, Access is definitely better because of
Excel's limitation on rows.

I like Excel's graphics capability much better than
Access. If you use a lot of charts and graphs, Excel is
better, in my experience.

Sorting of records is much easier in Access, although both
Excel and Access have powerful record filtering capability.

Don't forget that you can go back and forth. I have one
case where the main data base table, in Access, is
thousands of records long, each record with over a hundred
fields. Users want to see limited subsets of these
records in a nice report or in a spreadsheet. A nice set
of utility queries tailored to your user's various needs
and set up on a user switchboard can spit out the needed
info into a spreadsheet at the press of a button. And
this approach is super-useful with parameter input built
into the query criteria fields (user-selection of start
and end dates, specific text, specific
departments/regions, etc.)

Conversely, if you have a large, well-formed spreadsheet
(nice uniform content with meaningful headers for each
column) it's simple to import it into Access

As Rick B points out, try things out. Very small data
sets can probably work well in both apps. It's when your
record sets get large and varied and when preservation of
record information is the dominant requirement that Access
begins to make more sense.
Good luck.

-----Original Message-----
I work in a company where Access is just starting to be

utilized... and now all of a sudden everyone wants to use
it. Since I am one of the few people with some experience
(albeit limited!) I am being asked to look at their
existing methods (often Excel) to see if Access can create
greater efficiencies. Clearly if there is a great deal of
statistical work I would use excel, and if it's a lot of
data I can see Access... but many of their situations seem
to be somewhere in the middle. Where can I get some help
with deciding the best program for the situation at hand?

 

[Stephen Glynn]

For what it's worth, I'm with HCJ on this -- go by what you want the
particular application to do. I keep all the data in Access, partly
because I want the flexibility that a relational rather than a flat
database gives me, partly because it's so much easier to sort data in
Access than in Excel and partly because if you're storing data in
properly normalised tables you can't start duplicating data, which, if
you do, is the road to a nervous breakdown because you're got to worry
about keeping it synchronised.

Excel and Access work perfectly happily together, and it just seems to
me so much easier to pull out from Access the data that you want to use
Excel's number-crunching power on and then to analyse it in Excel.

Steve

 

[PC Datasheet]

I'm also with hcj on this when he said "If you want to keep records, use Access.
If you want to see
what's going on at the moment, use Excel." Also keep in mind that as another
responder pointed out that integrated applications can be created that utilize
Access and Excel in the same application. These applications can be very
synergystic creating efficiencies that are much better than using either program
on its own.

To answer your question "Where can I get some help with deciding the best
program for the situation at hand?", I am in business to provide customers with
a resource for help with Access, Excel and Word applications. If you would like
my help, contact me at my email address below.

--
PC Datasheet
Your Resource For Help With Access, Excel And Word Applications
(e-mail address removed)
www.pcdatasheet.com

I work in a company where Access is just starting to be utilized... and now

all of a sudden everyone wants to use it. Since I am one of the few people with
some experience (albeit limited!) I am being asked to look at their existing
methods (often Excel) to see if Access can create greater efficiencies. Clearly
if there is a great deal of statistical work I would use excel, and if it's a
lot of data I can see Access... but many of their situations seem to be
somewhere in the middle. Where can I get some help with deciding the best
program for the situation at hand?

 

[Troll]

Yeah, we know. You advertise almost daily. To us who
frequent the boards, it gets old fast.


Grumpy Troll (Have to work late tonight)

-----Original Message-----
I'm also with hcj on this when he said "If you want to keep records, use Access.
If you want to see
what's going on at the moment, use Excel." Also keep in mind that as another
responder pointed out that integrated applications can be created that utilize
Access and Excel in the same application. These applications can be very
synergystic creating efficiencies that are much better than using either program
on its own.

To answer your question "Where can I get some help with deciding the best
program for the situation at hand?", I am in business to provide customers with
a resource for help with Access, Excel and Word

applications. If you would like

 

[Guest]

From the "Rules of Conduct" for these newsgroups

Advertising/Solicitation: These communities were created as a forum for providing peer-to-peer assistance on Microsof
products and services. We ask that you refrain from posting advertisements or solicitations that do not pertain directly to
the intended use and purpose of the newsgroup or chat

My interpretation of the above is that if someone were to offer services for a fee, then that makes the 'assistance' no longer "peer-to-peer" but rather "seller-to-buyer" and therefore no longer pertaining directly to the intended use and purpose of the newsgroup

(Heard in the background -- "But Wait!! that's not all. For the low price of just a couple o' hundred bucks you get....."

----- Troll wrote: ----

Yeah, we know. You advertise almost daily. To us who
frequent the boards, it gets old fast


Grumpy Troll (Have to work late tonight

-----Original Message----
I'm also with hcj on this when he said "If you want to keep records, use Access
If you want to se
what's going on at the moment, use Excel." Also keep in mind that as anothe
responder pointed out that integrated applications can be created that utiliz
Access and Excel in the same application. These applications can be ver
synergystic creating efficiencies that are much better than using either progra
on its own

To answer your question "Where can I get some help with

deciding the bes
program for the situation at hand?", I am in business to provide customers wit
a resource for help with Access, Excel and Word applications. If you would lik
my help, contact me at my email address below

-

PC Datashee
Your Resource For Help With Access, Excel And Word Application

(e-mail address removed)
www.pcdatasheet.co

 

[Troll]

We ask that you refrain from posting advertisements
or solicitations that do not pertain directly to
the intended use and purpose of the newsgroup or chat.

Yeah, but he could say it does pertain directly to the
newsgroup. So do we still have to listen to a mediocre
developer trying to peddle his "advice" for a fee?

Grumpy Troll (Have to face traffic in a few minutes)

-----Original Message-----
From the "Rules of Conduct" for these newsgroups:

Advertising/Solicitation: These communities were

created as a forum for providing peer-to-peer assistance
on Microsoft

products and services. We ask that you refrain from

posting advertisements or solicitations that do not
pertain directly to

the intended use and purpose of the newsgroup or chat.

My interpretation of the above is that if someone were to

offer services for a fee, then that makes the 'assistance'
no longer "peer-to-peer" but rather "seller-to-buyer" and
therefore no longer pertaining directly to the intended
use and purpose of the newsgroup.

(Heard in the background -- "But Wait!! that's not all.

For the low price of just a couple o' hundred bucks you
get.....")