Question Haven't a clue where to start

[nameless]

Hi. Never created a database before but have a basic knowledge of Excel. I am interested in Horse Racing and I want to find out which types of races on which courses produce profits (or lets face losses)if a certain 2 scenarios were used in the race.
At the moment I collect the data in excel every day and I obviously realise that if this data was put directly into access, I could extract whatever reports I wanted. My problem is the usual beginners one and that is what tables do I need. The basics are: (1). There are 3 different categories racing, National Hunt, Flat and All Weather. (2) The number of different courses are 42 National Hunt, 35 Flat, 5 All Weather. (3) There are also different types of races in each category, namely 30,16,18.
Each day there could be up to 5 different race meetings, not all the same categories, with up to 8 races per meeting. I have to enter the daily results into an excel spreadsheet as this works out my profit or loss, given 2 scenarios, per race. On an average day there could be up to 30 different races to input data from.
My questions are, do I just put all the races in one data base showing Category, Course, Type of Race, and the 2 scenario outcomes, or have tables for each category. Is there a beginners way of moving data from excel to access?
I have Access 2007.
Thanks in advance.

 

[NickHa]

You could start by using one of the template databases offered in Access - NorthWind.accdb is quite useful, as number of the help texts refer to it.
From Excel, you can use the Import Wizard to retrieve your spreadsheet(s) and let it analyse your columns. That will be its "best guess" and likely won't match your application requirements and relationships correctly, but it's a start.
You should analyse the information you hold in Excel and normalise it (search for 'normalization' in Google) - that will return links such as this one: http://www.sqa.org.uk/e-learning/MDBS01CD/page_26.htm.
If you are familiar with VBA in Excel, much of it is transferable, although you need to learn about the Access object model. NorthWind has examples of this.
You will probably go through a steep learning curve, from which you will dscover that what you did first was possibly not the most efficient - but if it works for you, that's the key.
If you get to specific problems, then post questions on this forum - but please be as specific as possible and give real examples.
I'm not going to attempt to give you an answer to your table structure at this point, but if you have a go at what you think is sensible, again post here to see what the community can offer by way of suggestions.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

I had a couple of ideas re horses.

I think that 2-y-o placing 2nd first time out, should show a profit betting them to win second time out.

I wanted to test some other sequences for 2-y-o, such as 2-3

I struggled to find any test data, I could load into Access, without paying for it.

I think there are so many things you may need to capture. going, weather, jockey, track, trainer, days since last outing, blinkers first time, even odds, what favourite the horse was, whether it drifted or moved in.

having got all this, you can then start playing with it, data mining, to see if anything turns up.

access will be far far easier than excel for stuff like this, but I am sure it isn't easy..

 

[Simon_MT]

The question you have to ask yourself is what are you trying to acheive? Then work backwards to the table structure. Try putting in scenarios to obtain results. Through trial and error and plenty patience you will see how your objective will be achieved.

Simon

 

[nameless]

Not replied on here before so I hope you get this. Look up Andrew Massey for Horse Racing data. He has all info required on just about everything racing and you can pull out reports from his data on specific points.
Thanks for replying

 

[nameless]

Thanks Simon. I suppose I was looking for someone to say you need this table or that table so I'll just have to stumble on in the dark.

%Thanks for replying.

 

[nameless]

Thanks NickHa for your reply. I'll have a go at that. On the question of importing data, I have rows of data in Excel which wanted to place directly into a table. I'll have a fiddle with the wizard to see if I can work something out.