Teaching Others to Use Access

[moscgama]

Hi,

I have been developing a database for my group, which they will be using mainly for data entry. Most of them have never used Access before and are nervous about switching over from Excel. I'm nervous about the behavioral shift that needs to happen and how to guide people through this shift.

Does anyone have advice on easing this behavioral shift? Or teaching people to use Access? I don’t know if I should teach them the nuts and bolts of Access (ie developing a database, etc), or just teach them how to do data entry from the forms that I've created. I don't want to burden them with unnecessary information, but I don't want them to view Access as a “black box” either.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!

Thanks for your time!

 

[Frothingslosh]

Teach them what they will need to know in order to use a well-designed database. Keep in mind that end users should NEVER have direct access to the navigation pane or any of its contents. They should only ever see the forms and the menus that you have set up for them.

If any of them will be operating as DBA's, then THOSE people may need to know how to build queries and the like, but most users shouldn't even be touching the query builder.

 

[plog]

I cringe at that phrase - "teach people access". From an end user's perspective they shouldn't know how to work Access, they should know how to work your particular database:

To go to the Budget Input form, click here and select the year and click...
Run the Status Report by going to the Report Menu, selecting 'Monthly Status' and...
To take an employee off the schedule, go into the Employee form, find them by searching...

Your Access database shouldn't require they know how to modify queries, add fields to a table or god forbid do an UPDATE query. This is on you, you need to limit the actions they can take and make the ones they can do as simple for them as possible.

Also, don't refer to your database as Access. Refer to it as "The X database" (Marketing Database, Accounting Database). I know its a mind game sort of thing, but it will help them not be scared of this beast they know as Access.

 

[Frothingslosh]

And, as usual, plog put it more eloquently than I would have thought to!