HELP - Access or Excel

[Doggo]

I'm sure this may have been asked before but I'd like people's opinion
about when you would consider using access instead of Excel.

I am starting development of an application that will act as a
interface to collect / update data with approximately 10 tables (o
sheets).

Main User tasks will be:

- review data in the interface
- Make Additions / changes / flag for delete
- filter data to smaller subsets of data
- search for specific keywords
- print report / list of data

My users are very familiar with excel and this slighly puts me off th
access interface. However, I do believe that it may be quicker t
develop / maintain the app in Access.

A final decision point is that I may have to publish some kind o
mainteneance interface in excel anyway down the line when we sell th
excel reporting tool that this data supports ?

Any Opinions would be appreciated

 

[JulieD]

Hi Doggo

My basic guidelines on when to use Access or Excel are
1) number of records (Excel only supports 65,536 rows)
2) number of digits of precision (how big your numbers are)
3) level of security desired
4) flat or relational data (stick relational data in Access whenever
possible)
5) reports required - Access has more flexible reporting functionality
6) multi-user requirements - Excel has severe limitations on what
functionality you can have in a shared workbook

Hope this helps
Cheers
JulieD

 

[Jamie Collins]

My basic guidelines on when to use Access or Excel are <<snipped>>.

Do you have any guidelines to offer about a hybrid solution i.e. Excel
front end, Jet database backend? The OP's main requirement seems to be
(my emphasis), "My users are very familiar with excel and this slighly
puts me off the access *interface*."

Jamie.

--

 

[JulieD]

Hi Jamie

sorry no, i've not done any work like this

Cheers
JulieD