Combining Data

[Capo]

I just had to pull a large amount of data from an off-site SQL server. Due to speed issues, I broke up the data into 3 pulls and exported the data as text.

I have now imported the data into Access and wish to combine the three tables into one. All of the fields are the same, the only difference is that I broke up the pulls by date ranges.

Would this be done via an Update or Append query? AND, how would that query look? Sorry, still a bit new to this.

 

[boblarson]

Just build an append query and when you change the query type from Select to Append it should prompt you to select the table you are appending to. Your table in the query should be the one you're taking data from. Then, if you select all of the fields and drag them on to the QBE grid it should match up the fields under AppendTo. Run it and then remove the table and select the next one and do the same thing with the fields, run it and then you're done.

 

[rainman89]

append query would be your best bet. can you use the query builder to do it?

 

[Capo]

Thanks so much! It seems so easy I don't know why it didn't click. /shrug

Thanks!

 

[Capo]

One more question for this project...

The data has a lot of duplicates in it, if I want to query unique results only, what do I need to put in the criteria?

 

[boblarson]

You can use a query using the Grouping/Totals button (greek sigma) to group them all into one, but ONLY if all of the fields you have in the query have the same data. If anything is different then it will repeat the other fields.

 

[Capo]

Sorry, I guess I should have mentioned that. If there are some missing data field for duplicates, how do you resolved this if you just want to compare a single field against itself?

(such as: Location: Pet Palace - and I only want to show one "pet palace")

 

[boblarson]

The only way I know of is to create a query (and put in a sort so it sorts so you see all of the duplicates together) and then manually delete the duplicates. I don't know of a way to tell Access to keep only those you want without touching a lot of records in some means or another.