Importing Data

When businesses migrate to a database to store their information they usually already have data in some form already. Importing data can reduce the time needed to migrate data to the new system. In this exercise you will import an address book into access.

1. Open up your Excel folder and look for the AddressBook.xls file, if you do not have the file check in the assignments folder. Open the file in excel and describe its contents.

2. If this file was a database table explain what would be wrong with it?

3. How would this problem be resolved?

4. Refer to the Create an Access database from an Excel workbook article for the steps of importing data. Follow these steps to create a new database called Contacts with a table called Addresses.

5. Access comes with a table analyzer to check tables for redundant data. Go to Tools > Analyzer > Table and run the table analyzer. What are the two problems with duplicating data in a table?

6. What does the wizard do to resolve this problem?

7. Let the wizard decide what changes to make. Give the tables appropriate names and continue with the wizard.

8. What is the last step of this process?

9. Click on the Queries Object in the Database View and click on the query that was created by the wizard. Compare this query with your original table, what new column appears?

10. With the query open, click on the Design View button. See if you can modify the query so the results do not include this new column, this way the results will look the same as the original table.

11. A query that pulls data from two tables is known as a join.

Exporting Data

1. Making the data in a database accessible to others in other formats is often desirable. Open your Employees table that you created in the Creating Tables exercise.

2. Export the file as an excel file and be sure to keep the formatting.

Show your answers, tables, modified query and excel file to your instructor for teacher check.