Chapter 17: Working with Your Data

Overview

10-Second Summary

• Sort data records

• Search for data

• Create and use queries

• Work with relationships

• Back up your data

Now that you ve got the process of creating databases down, let s move on to what you ll actually do with the information you store. Although databases are good for storing information, their primary benefit is that they enable you to work with the data you ve saved to see data trends, sales results, and future projects in new and enlightening ways. By sorting your data in a certain way, you ll be able to tell whether you sell more on the West coast or the East coast , for example, thereby helping you decide where to spend your advertising dollars. By searching for your top salespeople in the Northeast region, you can easily see who you need to take to dinner on your next trip north. And when you need to do damage control and orchestrate a recall (who purchased Model 2332 in Maine between July 15 and September 15 of last year?), you can use a query in Microsoft Office Access 2003 to find that information almost as quickly as you can type.