Approach to solving a query problem

[Hazzy]

I am practically new to access and I need some help defining how to approach
this problem.

I am working with a huge data set imported into 4 tables in access from 4
seperate excel sheets. Some of the fields in these tables are related and
some are not (I understand the concept of the primary key but I can't set any
of the existing fields in the tables as the primary key as non of the fields
contains unique records). I am looking to present the data in all these
tables in a specific format (i.e present select fields from all the tables in
one query).

My approach is to do my best to relate the fields I am presenting in these 4
tables as much as possible and run a query of these fields. I don't even know
if this is the right approach but please any suggestions will be greatly
appreciated.

I have built a small database from scratch preciously but this is just
almost beyond me.

 

[John W. Vinson]

I am practically new to access and I need some help defining how to approach
this problem.

I am working with a huge data set imported into 4 tables in access from 4
seperate excel sheets. Some of the fields in these tables are related and
some are not (I understand the concept of the primary key but I can't set any
of the existing fields in the tables as the primary key as non of the fields
contains unique records). I am looking to present the data in all these
tables in a specific format (i.e present select fields from all the tables in
one query).

My approach is to do my best to relate the fields I am presenting in these 4
tables as much as possible and run a query of these fields. I don't even know
if this is the right approach but please any suggestions will be greatly
appreciated.

I have built a small database from scratch preciously but this is just
almost beyond me.

You'll need to come up with a properly normalized table design; data coming
from Excel is almost surely NOT properly normalized. This is not a trivial
undertaking but not all that complicated - you need to identify the "Entities"
(real life persons, things or events) relevant to your application, and create
a table for each type of entity. You'll probably then need to run some append
queries to migrate the data from your spreadsheets into the new tables.

See some of the resources here:

Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/accessjunkie/resources.html

The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

Roger Carlson's tutorials, samples and tips:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/

A free tutorial written by Crystal:
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

A video how-to series by Crystal:
http://www.YouTube.com/user/LearnAccessByCrystal

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials


If you wish, feel free to post the names and significance of your four current
tables, and some relevant fieldnames (explaining them if the fieldname isn't
meaningful to someone unaquainted with your business model).