importing fields into access

[spooner]

Hi,

I'm a complete Novice with Access with little to no experience, however after recently starting a job I'm attempting to use Access as from what i can remember in school it would be perfect for this.

I'm essentially trying to import some information from an Excel table into Access and for Access to recognize some fields and consequently associate it with the necessary staff members.

My main table in Access is 'Staff' it comprises of;

Staff ID - Autonumber - Primary Key
First Name - Text
Surname - Text
Role - Text - (Dropdown with fields from another table)
Hometown - Text
Employed - Yes/No

Software in Work 'FIFI' let me export staff training data in an excel spreadsheet form. The columns are;

First name
Surname
Days
Start Date
End Date

Names are identical that are produced from FIFI and are stored within the Access DB.

The Staff ID in the 'Staff' Table is for use within the DB only and has no relevance outside of it.

Does anyone know of a way to link these records to the staff remember after i have imported them in access?

I've looked online and the only way i can see of doing it is to enter them 1 by 1 via a form which is unrealistic.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Freeflow]

I'm new to Access too. I found that importing data wasn't too bad.

First step is to have a look at the external data tab in Access. This allows you to import data into new or existing tables. I found it easiest to import the speadsheet as a new table and then add the additional columns I needed.


I also found I could select a range within a column in excel and then past that into an existing table.

Just try a little exploring on some temporary tables and you'll soon get the hang of it.

 

[sneuberg]

If the names are distinct and match you could just add the fields Days, Start Date, and End Date to the Staff table and then update them with an update query from the imported table.