Excell t Access

[Guest]

I am just starting to learn access. Is it possible to import a very large
excell spreadsheet into access. The excell spreadsheet is for 8 different
worksites, 2 worksheets full of information for each site and each worksheet
has about 25 fields and 50 records, with quite a few blank cells. If I try
to transfer the excell information into access, will all the blank cells make
a mess of the access database? Do I have to make an attempt of creating the
access database from scratch?
My boss insists that this will be easy to do, I am having doubts as to it
being easy. I realize that running reports will be easier in access, but all
this is beginning to look beyond my capabilites. Realy, learn access and
have the massive database created by the end of Feb.?!?!?

 

[Dave]

yes, it is possible. is it a good idea? maybe. is it a good idea for you?
probably not. if your company depends on it get someone else to design you
a tool, or recommend an existing one that is already well proven. you must
remember that databases are not spreadsheets, even though they look like a
lot of cells in a grid, they need vastly different architectures to do
similar jobs. so while just importing the data into access from excel is
easy, making access do the calculations that are easy in excel may not be.

 

[tina]

well, the volume of data in the spreadsheets is not great, but that's not
really the issue. spreadsheet data is in a "flat file" format, but Access is
a *relational data* management system. you can't simply dump 25 fields into
an Access database and hope that it will be "easier" to run reports - likely
it will be as harder or harder than working with the data in Excel.

if you're going to use Access, you'll need to learn the basic principles of
data normalization, and then build an appropriate tables/relationships
structure to house the data from Excel, and then migrate that data from the
spreadsheets into the Access table(s). once you've done that, then yes, it
probably will be much easier to run reports on the data in Access.

but can you do that in a week and a half? maybe. it depends on the
complexity of the data, and on how quick a study you are; some people grasp
normalization principles easily, for others it's harder. for more
information, see http://home.att.net/~california.db/tips.html#aTip1

hth