On this project I learned the fundamentals of Access 2010. In a previous college course we studied Access database functions briefly, but not to the level that Mr. Olson presented the material. The material was a little daunting because unlike Excel, I have never used Access in real life applications before. The lectures were concise and easy to follow. Mr. Olson did not present any distracting material that could later become confusing for a learner like me. I was able to refer to the lectures many times when I ran into problems with the project. Unlike my previous course, I can now see a direct correlation from the raw data, to tables, to queries and reports. I also learned to import data from Excel and CSV files, which I can use at work now with lots of raw data that I have and see what kind databases I can generate. Our technicians do monthly PMs on telecommunications equipment and keep an inventory of spare parts. We have been using Excel spreadsheets to document these events. With this knowledge in hand I’m now considering using an Access data base form and tables to archive this data. Once I got into the project I really enjoyed it. The course gave me the fundamentals to get started and hopefully become more proficient in this powerful application. It’s important that I use these newly learned skills at work immediately so that they do not fall by the wayside.
The main frustration for me with Access is the formatting. I wish that Microsoft would develop a more user friendly interface when dealing with formatting the reports and forms. It can become tedious working back and forth between design view and form or report view and trying to get everything to look presentable. A dual pane would be useful.
One possible career path I’ve been considering is data mining. They offer graduate studies in this field at the University of Central Florida. This project has given me a glimpse into some of the workings of relational databases. If anyone is interested in finding out what a data scientist does here are a few links.
No comments:
Post a Comment