Question Is access the correct database for me

[generaluser]

I am a total beginner with regards to databases. I don't know even the basics at the moment but I have a need to use database in near future. So I want to ask if access is the correct tool for me to use for the work i need to get done (described below)?

I have to compile a about 1500 documents each catagoried and sorted into 10 different categories. Each of these catagories have about a further 30 subcategories and there has to be about 5 to 10 cases (docuemnts) in each of these subcategories. I need to enter the metadata to be able to sort them and get reports.

I plan to scan each of those 1500 documents that i will be accumulating over a period of 2 to 3 years and then attach or provide link to them in access database.

I know i can do this using a simple folder and subfolder structure but then i won't have the ablity to organize and analyze each of them as well as i can if i have a database. So Please tell me if accesss or any other database tool can help me with this?

NB: I am willing to spend some time to learn about basic functionality of a database tool

 

[NauticalGent]

Good evening GU, and welcome to the forum,

The answer to your question, catagorily, is yes. Access is a very powerful and robust too. And this forum is the right place to learn.

Jump right in and get started, but I strongly urge you to spend some time getting to know Access and learn the basics. Spend some quality time on what is known as "normalization".

A classic mistake most of us make is treating Access like Excel. You will be tempted to do the same in the interest of time. If you don't take time to do it right, you will make time to do it over...

Best of luck!

 

[generaluser]

Thanks for your help. But can you please tell me if access is the best tool to do what i intend to do?

Will adding 1500 or more scanned documents make it a little too bloated? and will I be able to categorize documents? I need to scan the signed documents for which I have to Print of the templates for those documents and then scan them and then get them into the database

 

[NauticalGent]

You kind of missed the point I was trying to make, but I will reluctantly answer your question. I say reluctantly because you seem to be jumping in the deep end on your first trip to the pool.

Access is more than capable of handleing 1500 documents, the attachment field capability would be an option...however, a more efficient means would be to store the scanned documents and use hyperlinks to map to them. Minimized bloat.

If you were wanting to use Access to "read" these documents and then store information in applicable fields, again Access CAN do the job...it is called parsing. Access can do it as well as any other COTS program I know of, but it involves dabbling in VBA and is not for beginners.

If you got the stones and the patience to embark on this journey then lace up and get in the game!

 

[stopher]

If your main goal is learning how to build a database then I agree with NauticalGent that Access is a great tool to build your own. But if you goal is to get your stuff catalogued, then you might consider market products. The generic title of what you are looking for is Digital Asset Management (DAM). There are free products out there. Depends a lot on how you want to store (locally, network or cloud). Might be worth searching some example Access DAM projects.

Also If you are using Windows then you can tag documents and then search on such tags. In this way you can retain your folder hierarchy whilst implementing a basic meta data search. It's a very simple solution with no reports.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

I would say your project is an excellent learning tool for access.

Large enough to be interesting, and small enough to be achievable.

Depending how polished you need it, I can imagine it taking up to a week to get a decent result.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Rhetorical question #1: Is Access the tool for you?

Probably.

Rhetorical question #2: Is Access the only tool that could do the job?

Probably not.

Rhetorical question #3: Do better tools than Access exist for this particular job?

Depends on what you want to do in the future.

Here is the way you need to see it. Access integrates well with Office documents in various ways. It has full access to the Windows file system. It is possible to do things like keep document file-specs and open the document without having saved the whole thing inside of Access. Access permits you to start slow using what are called "wizards" to build certain facilities. As your experience grows, you would become able to "spruce up" your application and add features "on-the-fly" because Access is meant to manage a living, growing application.

As to the amount of space? If you have a mere 1500 documents to track, that is child's play. I had a database that tracked actions performed by systems administrators with respect to system security directives. At times, we had results for over 1/2 million tracked actions over a 3-month period, depending on how long it took to clear certain actions for archiving. The detailed reports, if printed, would have taken several hundred pages even with front/back printing. Even summaries often took more than one page for some of our larger projects. So don't worry about capacity.

The ONLY thing you could do that would jeopardize your use of Access is to try to actually store the entire document in your database, because Access DOES have a size limit. If instead you just store file specifications and use those to open the desired document on demand, well... a file spec will usually fit in 255 or less bytes. A detailed document, if stored in Access, would take kilobytes or megabytes and would run you towards the size limit quickly. That's the only thing that would make Access unsuitable for you. But here's the flip side. NONE of the other database tools really likes to store whole documents either. They would ALSO prefer to use pointers.

Other than stopher's suggestion about a specific document management product, I doubt you would find a better tool than Access - but it will always come back down to the question of how far you want to take the product, and we can't answer that for you.