This is beneficial for customers as well, because they can get a faster and more suitable service. Instead of waiting around for staff to find what they want, staff will be able to query the database in a matter of minutes.
Overall, a database will help the business be more organized, have easy access to information and be more productive.
Queries
Another helpful tool that Access database has is the query tool. With this tool, you can search for anything in the database easily without spending a lot of time searching through records. This is very useful for a business as it saves a lot of time searching for cars or features that customers may ask for. Here are a range of questions that customers may ask:
- Can you show me any blue Volvo’s?
- Have you got any cars that are diesel?
- Which four door cars do you have?
- Which cars do you have that are below £5,000?
- Which cars do you have that have done less than 7,000 miles?
- Can you show me a list of black cars?
Which of these cars are priced under £10,000?
- Which Ford cars do you have?
Which of these cars is priced £10,000 to £15,000?
- Which cars do you have that have air conditioning?
Which of these cars is under £10,000?
- Which cars do you have that are over £20,000?
Which of these cars are diesels?
- Which blue cars are there?
Which of these cars have 5 doors?
- Can you show me a list of VW Golf’s that have Air conditioning?
- Which cars do you have that have 5 doors and are petrol?
- Which Nissan cars do you have that have 3 or 5 doors, but are not petrol?
- Which Vauxhall cars do you have that have 5 or 4 doors?
- Which cars do you sell that have 2 doors and are petrol?
Sources
For my coursework, I used a range of sources for my database. These sources are all varied slightly according to the details that were present. These are the 3 different sources I used:
Motor Point -
The Car Shop -
NK Motor -
(Sources are shown on the next three pages.)
These sources seemed all accurate, and I decided on what field types I used based on the data present from these sources. I didn’t use all the data from every one of these sources, as some seemed unnecessary or didn’t include enough information.
Example:
One record only presented the make, litres and price and because it contained so little data, I did not use it.
Some data, I did not copy down because I already had similar records present already: so I was looking for more of a variety. In a business, a car database will have numerous amounts of similar data for cars, but for my coursework I wanted to show as much variation as possible.
Example:
NK Motors:
Vauxhall Zafira 1.8 Club Auto, 5 doors, Grey, £5495
The Car Shop:
Vauxhall Zafira 1.8i Club Auto, 5 doors, Grey, £5995
These two records seem too similar, so I only used one of them.
The method I used to collect the data was by looking at various different sources and deciding on all the data they had in common i.e. make, model, price etc. and copying down various information from each source. I double-checked all the information I copied and also made sure I did not copy down similar or same information. This method of collecting data is based on the output that I will be producing. The outputs are reports based on 5 different queries that customers may have about the cars.
Reasons For Choice Of Software
For my coursework I had to compile a database of second hand vehicles using current information from local garages, leaflets and newspapers. The database will be designed so that staff can obtain details of vehicles easily.
After I gathered information about 50 vehicles, I decided to test the data with different software’s. These software’s were Access Database and Excel Spreadsheet.
Access Database
Excel
I decided to choose Access Database because it was the best software to produce the required outputs. The required output is a report based on information that is processed from the database and you can’t produce reports easily in Excel which is one of the first reasons I decided to use Access. It’s easy to setup and you can manipulate it to make sure there are no mistakes. Multiple users can access database files which is more efficient for a business that has a lot of staff and requires updates of records.
You can query a database which is relatively easier then filtering spreadsheets. You can also do more complex queries in Access then in Excel. You can find information quickly and efficiently which reduces time and money in a business. You can control what is inputted in each cell and create validation rules and error messages to assist user’s i.e. staff.
In Excel you can’t control what you put in any cell, so if you make a mistake without realising, that mistake will remain unknown which can corrupt the data and cause there to be false records present.
I personally prefer to use Access Database because of its easy user interface and setup.
The data that the company will be using seems more compatible for this software as well, because some of the fields are Yes/No answers which can easily be inserted using a tick box.
Overall, Excel spreadsheet does have its advantages, but compared to Access Database, it isn’t as efficient as it could be.
