Chapter 3 -- Designing Tables

Chapter 3

Many businesses that use databases do not appreciate the importance of table design—they tend to focus on forms and reports, which are more visible to users. But the design and content of tables and the relationships among tables can significantly affect the services that custom database solutions can provide. Table design can also affect the speed of a custom solution as well as how easily new services can be added to the system.

This chapter starts by briefly examining general table design considerations, such as how to split information into logical groupings so that it can be stored in various tables. Next, it explores how to create tables with Microsoft Access 2000 manually and by using the Access wizards. You'll also learn about indexes, primary keys, and how to form relationships among tables.

This chapter also shows you how to dynamically create and populate tables in Access, which allows you to create powerful, feature-rich custom database solutions. The companion CD includes many ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) samples that dynamically create and populate an Access table. These samples build on the introductory ADO coverage in Chapter 2. One set of samples even shows how to combine ADO and the easy-to-use DoCmd object to dynamically interact with Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) and open database connectivity (ODBC) data sources.