New to access, multiple criteria query

[asdvender]

Hey all,

I am new to Microsoft Access 2007. Infact, new to Access as a whole. I have been using Microsoft Excel for all my database needs, however I have been spending a LOT of time manipulating the data so I thought I would look into Microsoft Access. I got the Access 2007 for Dummies book so I am going through that, but I have a question before I get too involved with it.

What I am looking for (and I have search with no results) is to check to see if it can do the ONE thing I am hoping it can do.
If the five records before it contain a certain value in a category, bring up the 6th record.

Please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[Guus2005]

Do get involved in Access. It really pays off!

If the five records before it contain a certain value in a category, bring up the 6th record.

If this is proper english please let me know, i am dutch. I don't quite understand what you're asking. But if you want the sixth record? Yes, you can.

Provide more information for a detailed answer.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Relational databases do not work the way that spreadsheets work. The biggest difference is that the presentation and storage layers are completely separate. With Access you use forms/reports/queries to display your data and tables to store it. With excel, you get what you see because the sheet is everything.

To answer your specific question, you will need to learn VBA to accomplish this. What you are asking is for Access to work like your spreadsheet and it won't without a lot of code. You need to rethink the question so that it can be formulated as a query that retrieves just the data you want. You can work on that without investing much time with the database. Just import your spreadsheet.

Of course, just importing your spreadsheet may be difficult if you don't understand how to break it apart into a normalized table structure.

Don't give up too easily. Access is far better at data processing than Excel is. you just need to be able to take off your spreadsheet hat and put on your RDBMS hat or you will absoluly hate Access. Trying to find a function that will add a set of columns will be one of your earlier frustrations and an indication that your tables are not yet normalized. No relational database supports functions that work with a set of columns the way a spreadsheet does. All functions work with a specific column in a domain of rows.