Best Training Course London

[Bazman]

Hi,

Myself and a few of my colleagues want to petition our boss to be given Microsoft access training. Most of us are fairly experienced excel users but
do not write our own macros or anything of that sort.

None of us have any prior experience with Access. Ideally we want a course based in London that will take us from ground up to expert users.

There seem to be loads of courses out there but we want to know which ones you feel are good and in particular which lecturers within a given company are best.

Cheers

Baz

 

[gemma-the-husky]

personally, i dont think any course would be particularly worthwhile. The main thing is to spend a lot of time trying different things, and you dont really get time on courses

get a decent book, work through it, try to do some things, look at northwind (MS example datbaase), and ask here about problems

the critical areas to understand are probably the concept of data normalisation, and an understanding of event-driven programming - it would help to have some programming experience.

as with excel, the more you use it, the easier it will get

 

[namliam]

personally, i dont think any course would be particularly worthwhile.

I strongly disagree...

There is a HUGE world of difference between doing excel spreadsheets and creating relational databases. HUGE...

I dont know if a course in Access will emphasise this enough tho, as excel users tend to stick to what they know. If you are going to make the switch be prepared to leave behind all that you know and venture beyond that!

I would recomend getting a general "database design" course rather than Access specific. Access course will teach you how to create a table and how to make a query... but not WHY, or how to design it. and that is the BIG difference between Excel and Access....

A database design course will teach you stuff about Normalization and important stuff like that. Also it will teach about dependancies, relational integrity, etc.

p.s. you can substitute will teach also by should teach...

 

[Bazman]

cheers guys, I think we would prefer a course as we would like some sort of certfication at the end of it. for career progression.

Like your idea about the general course, did you have anyhting specific in mind

 

[gemma-the-husky]

i wasn't comparing it with excel, just saying that as with excel, the more practice you have with databases, the easier it becomes.

 

[namliam]

i wasn't comparing it with excel, just saying that as with excel, the more practice you have with databases, the easier it becomes.

That is true...

Sorry Bazman, I have no clue as to Certification... All autotutory my self, with a little help from Google offcourse.

I have been changing employers due to "career moves" lately, actually 2 times in the last 2 years. NO one ever asked me for any certificate, or even my high school diploma's for that matter...
I dont know how things are in the UK, but we database people seem to be pretty rare in the NL.

 

[namliam]

i wasn't comparing it with excel, just saying that as with excel, the more practice you have with databases, the easier it becomes.

I justed wanted to add, it is also very easy to pick up very bad habits using access, moreso even than with Excel...
Which is one of the reasons I say, get a good ground floor "database design 101" course. It will probably cost less and be worth more than a "how to get to be an access 'expert' overnight"

Then with your "general" database knowledge, start working with Access and before you know it you are there where you want to be. Or even beyond because you might be telling someone the exact same thing in about 3 years.

(I hope that doesnt sound to self promoting )

And offcourse all IMHO

 

[gemma-the-husky]

there may be courses out there BUT

i still think working through a primer at your own speed, and asking questions of a mentor occasionally will be far better than trying to find a course - you may get a one-dayer to show you the methodology, but a regular (say weekly) course may well hold you back, as you learn new things.

however, the books try to guide you through tables,queries forms etc, but tend to stop at vba. (and the courses probably do as well) AND you cant do much WITHOUT vba - if you have never even tried to program Excel, (its basically the same language) and have no previous programming experience, this WILL be a real difficulty.

As the mailman says, to a great extent you have to forget excel thinking - access looks similar, but the paradigm behind it is completely different. Effectively rather than a single spreadsheet, you are aiming for a series of interconnected "spreadsheet-like tables", and you HARDLY EVER see the full picture - all you are trying to get is extracts/summations of the data in which you are interested - rather like a much more powerful version of spreadsheet autofilter

 

[GaryPanic]

I was given the notes from a Access course - and it was ok - but nothing compared to a decent book - Access Bible is pretty good - just being on the forum and look at every post - will also point out a large element of what you are going to need , Some access users say that you don't need programming and ona simple d/b that might be true - but to gets some smarts built in - you do..

 

[bluwind]

if you are wanting to get from ameture to expert you will need at least two courses as there is no speciality course (hmmmm niche in the market).

I recommend taking a small basic computer course but opt out of all the other sections like word, excel. that should give you something comparable to an NC (cost about £120 - £650 each) as husky says, play around for a lfew months then sign up for the offical microsoft course. make you microsoft certified then ..