Planning Tips To Building A Microsoft Access Database

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Planning Tips To Building A Microsoft Access
Database
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In my latest eBook on how to build a
Microsoft Access database, I cover a section
about planning your database before developers
should delve in and implement. Before they know
it, its too late when they realise how off track
they are and now left with potentially a
reversing and undoing exercise!   So, to get
started on the right track, heres an extract for
your reference   Reverse Engineering? I'm
often asked How do you design a good database? My
simple answer, IReverse engineer it!   It is a
technique that I have used many times and it
works very well for me. The process to a good
database design has nothing to do with Microsoft
Access or any other database application.  
The methodologies I've come across over the years
leave me with a lot of questions about "Do the
methodologies often discussed really justify the
end result?"
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The amount of time and complexity
of the techniques in database methodologies and
system analysis is sometimes a huge overhead of
your time and the theories are sometimes
questionable - it may work for others and that's
great!   So here's how I start the Reverse
Engineering process...   Planning a database
can (more so for newbie's) send you up the wall!
But if you spend some time making a task list of
the steps that will be needed when you start
building your database, checking each item when
completed, this will be a good start and will
keep you focused.   But hey, even before you
type a single character on that keyboard and
build your first table, the following process is
a pen and paper exercise (or a text editor on
your computer) and there is no requirement to
even start up Access at this point.  
Remember, Access is a tool for database
management and it's there to serve as a tool for
your processes and not dictate to you how to run
your business. So, this article talks about your
processes and how it will fit into a structured
database.
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I have a 7 step 'reverse engineering' plan as
shown below
In fact, the first five steps are critical as
they will determine and ultimately define the
'back-end' database system. The remaining two
steps handle the 'front-end' database system and
in some cases, are never considered as users may
only wish to work with the 'back-end'.   Take a
look at my eBook How To Build an Access Database
to drill into the finer detail and avoid that all
embarrassing pear-shaped database.
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Contact us
Ben Beitler
ben_at_accessdatabasetutorial.com
(44) 7881
502400
United Kingdom
London
https//www.accessdatabasetutorial.com/