The user will need the necessary software and hardware to run the software and also a printer to print out reports. They will need to have a back up storage facility e.g. another drive, memory sticks or floppy disks.
The plan of my database
Plan for the Card Holder Table:
Plan for the Schools Table:
Setting up the database
I choose to set up the tables in design view, so that I could control how the tables were going to be formatted. After opening the design view the blank design form can be typed into so that you can create your own field names. Data types and field lengths.
Relationships in my database
To make the relationship database work I had to form relationship between the two tables by clicking on the relationship icon and dragged one key field to another to create it (shown below on the left of the screen shot). Because one school can have many pupils I chose a many to one relationship, between my tables. On the right hand side of the screen shot shows the relationship editing window which shows that I have created a one-to-many relationship which means one school in the schools table will relate to many schools in the card holders table.
How I entered data into the database
When entering data you should not enter data straight into the tables particular if you want someone to enter data for you. It’s easier for a novice to enter data because it’s more accurate and secure if they use an input form. I created an input form for both tables by clicking on the “Forms” tab in the database window and using the form report wizard to create
Card holders form School form
To move through the records or check and edit them you have to use the navigation button at the bottom of the form box.
Checking and correcting
Searching/Sorting the database
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Reporting using the database
I created two reports from my two queries by using the report wizard. To do this you should click on reports in the database window and then ‘create report by using the wizard’. This will take you through various steps to create the report. You can choose the data source, the style of the report, the layout, the fields you want to include and how to sort the report. I created two reports from my two queries. In the first one I chose one style for the report and in the second I chose a different one to look at the more suitable style. The two reports are shown below. One is landscape to get all the data in (even then I had to amend the formatting in design view because the first and last fields did not fit on the paper). The bottom one is much neater and professional looking and has fewer fields so that it can fit in a portrait orientation.
Backing Up
You need to back up your data regularly in case there is system rash or other data loss of some kind. Backing up ensure that you have another copy that you can refer to if you lose the original copy.
