Hi Lillian,
To merge two Access databases, do the following steps:
1. Open the database Bill was updating so far using MS Access.
2. Go to Tools -> Replication -> Create Replica...
3. It will ask you to close the database, so click on the "Yes" button.
4. After few seconds, Access will prompt you to backup original database. In
the message box you can click "Yes" (if you would like to save original
database as .bak name).
5. Select the replica access database name and click "Ok" button.
6. You would see a message saying that both master & replica has been created.
7. If you double click on any of the tables in that database, you would find
that it has the same records that Bill was adding so far.
8. Close Bill's database and open replica database.
9. The replica database has the same data that Bill added so far but we
should modify those with the data that everyone else added in the 2nd
database.
10. So for each table in the replica database, double click on the table
name and then press Ctrl+A (to select all the records) and then Ctrl+X or
"Delete" key in the keyboard.
11. Click "Yes" in the confirmation window.
12. Repeat step 10, and 11 for all the table names in the replica database.
13. Now open the 2nd database that was updated by everyone else.
14. Double click on any table name in the 2nd database and then press Ctrl+A
(select all) and Ctrl+C (copy).
15. In the replica database double click on the same table name you selected
in the previous step. You should see that it does not contain any records.
15. Press Ctrl+A then Ctrl+V. A confirmation window should tell you the
number of records you are trying to paste. Click on the "Yes" button.
16. Repeat step 15, and 16 for all the tables in 2nd database. And finally
click on the save button from the file menu.
17. After you have copied all the records from 2nd database to replica
database. The replica database now basically holds all the data that were
there in the 2nd database.
18. Now open the master database and go to Tools -> Replication ->
Synchronized now...
19. Check that the replica database name is correct and click on the "OK"
button.
20. You would get a message saying that database must be closed. So click on
the "Yes" button.
21. If there are no conflicts in the synchronization then you should see a
message saying that the synchronization completed successfully.
22. So now the master database holds both Bill's changes as well as the
changes done by everyone else in the 2nd database.
23. Repeat step 18 – 21 on the replica database to sync with master database.
24. If you want now you can give the replica database to Bill and everyone
else to update this database rather than original databases. And occasionally
you should merge the data from the replica databases to keep your master
database up-to-date.
Please note that I have assumed that both Bill's database and 2nd database
has the same schema. Let me know if you come across any issues.
Regards
Sanjib