Advanced MS-Access for Power Users

By

Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Eric Parks

Presentation Goal

Make you more efficient at :

Identifying and working with Banner data to create queries

Writing MS Access queries

About IUP 14,000 students; 1,800 employees Largest Member, SSHE 3 campuses; 1 center; 1 academy Doctoral I Clock-hour programs

Banner at IUP Implemented five baseline modules and

three “Web For” products 1998-2000 Banner 5.x (soon to be Banner 6) Oracle 9i, OAS (soon to be 9IAS) Sun Solaris

The Challenge

Problem Statement We were seeing an increase in the

number of MS Access users not following proper practices for creating reports and pulling Banner data

Topics

Getting Started Other ways to get Reports/Data Compacting Poor Practices

Getting Started

1. Defining your dataDefining your data

2. Understanding your dataUnderstanding your data

4. Presenting your resultsPresenting your results

3. Creating resultsCreating results

Two Popular Methods

Determine tables/views needed to create the query

Via Banner Client Via Web site developed by IUP

Banner Form

Within Banner Form with desired data

Select the field with data you wish to use in your query and click Help >> Dynamic Help Query

The help form shows the field name which will point you to the correct table.

FTVACCT is the table the field FTVACCT_ACCT_CODE is stored in.

Web Information Resource

Web-site created by IUP Broken down by modules Lists tables and views along with comments

on the fields

Primary Keys – Indexes

If queries and reports use the indexed fields, then the query runs much faster

If you use the indexed field in the underlying table associated with a view, the query will run faster even though views do not have listed indexes

Example: SPBPERS

Query w/ Indexed field (SPBPERS_PIDM) Pidm is indexed so query

zooms to correct record Super fast and efficient

Query by non indexed field(SPBPERS_LEGAL_NAME ) Check 1st record for match –

no match then check 2nd record for match etc until find match

May go through MANY records to find match

Very slow and resource consuming

Would be like trying to find a particular file folder without any labels. You would have to go through each one until you found the one you were looking for.

However, if the folders were labeled (indexed) you could directly choose the correct one without having to look at all the other folders.

Querying without an index

Application Tables (Base/Repeating) Base Table – ex SPBPERS

Contains ONE record for each key SPBPERS_PIDM is the Key in this table so the

output is one record per person

Repeating Table ex SPRADDR Contains multiple records pointing back to a

record in a base table

Validation Tables

Used to verify values for a particular field; Values must be in the table in order to be allowed during data entry into an associated banner form

Characteristics of Validation tables Have Code field and Description field The _Code in a field name indicates there may be an

associated Validation table For reporting, the code field is often used to obtain the

description from the validation table

Validation Tables Naming Conventions

Example … STVATYP (address type) S -> module student T -> Table V -> Table type of Validation Last 4 characters refer to field name

SPRADDR_ATYP_CODE field has an associated validation table named STVATYP

Views in depth

A view is a subset of one or more tables Views can help optimize your applications The user only needs access to the view, not

the underlying tables

Table 1

Field 1

Field 2

Field 3

Field 4

Table 2

Field 1

Field 2

Field 3

Field 4

Field 5

Field 6

Table 3

Field 1

Field 2

Field 3

Field 4

Field 5

Field 6

Field 7

VIEWTable 1: Field 1 Table 3: Field 1

Table 1: Field 2 Table 3: Field 2

Table 2: Field 1 Table 3: Field 3

Table 2: Field 4 Table 3: Field 4

Table 2: Field 6

sgvstd1

Fields …

AS_Student_Data

sgvstd2

Fields …

Consists of fields from the following tables:

Spridensprtelespraddrsorfolksgbstdn spbpersstvterm sprhold

stvresd

Fields…

Querying SCT Views with required fields

Banner bookshelf or the hardcopy Reporting manual

Search for the view name

Why Mandatory?

In order to obtain information at the level identified by the key attributes, you must supply these conditions when you create your query

The mandatory fields are the indexed fields/primary keys; When the indexed fields are used, the query is much more efficient

When the mandatory conditions are met, a subset of the data is returned which also speeds the query and reduces stress on the Banner system

Example: AS_STUDENT_ENROLLMENT_SUMMARY

Mandatory ConditionsThe following condition must be supplied for the view to report the

information:

Term Code -- Term_Code_Key

Student Listing

Tim Parker PA 243-9765 199301

Tim Parker PA 243-9765 199403

Tim Parker PA 243-9765 199501

Allison Sharp OR 624-8339 199501

Anne Turner IL 978-4122 199403

Anne Turner IL 978-4122 199501

Name State Phone Term

Tim Parker PA 243-9765 199501

Allison Sharp OR 624-8339 199501

Anne Turner IL 978-4122 199501

Name State Phone Term

The mandatory condition TERM_CODE_KEY was not supplied, so there is a row for every term in the database

The mandatory condition TERM_CODE_KEY = ‘199501’ was supplied, so only the rows in that term were returned

Tables vs. ViewsWhich one should you use?

Use tables for linear/simple queries Use views for complicated queries

involving multiple tables Security Issues

A view may be used or created for sensitive data

Expression Builder Concatenation & or + can be used to join

NAME: [LAST_NAME]+", "+[FIRST_NAME]+" "+[MIDDLE_INITIAL] Donlan, Michael J

TERM: [TERM_DESC]&" (“&[TERM_CODE_KEY]&")“ Spring 2003 (200250) for term 200250

IIf («expr», «truepart», «falsepart») Local: IIf([STATE1]="PA","IN STATE","OUT OF STATE")

If state is PA then IN STATE would be displayed since it is true

Left$ («stringexpr», «n») Year: Left$([TERM_CODE_KEY],4)

2002 for term 200250

Format («expr», «fmt») Date: Format([ENROLLMENT_ADD_DATE],"mm/dd/yyyy")

Result example 10/10/2002

Comparison Operators

LIKE Criteria for Last_Name

Like “Jon*“ would return Jones, Jonet etc Not equal <>

Criteria for field State1<>"PA"

IN Criteria for field Last_Name

In (“Smith”,”Jones") Between

Criteria for Enrollment_Add_Date Between #4/2/2002# And #4/4/2002#

Better way to get values between two dates is:>= #4/2/2002# and < #4/5/2002#

AND OR

Presenting MS Access Data

MS Access Reports Word Merge Export

HTML MS Excel Tab Delimited file

Report Snapshot

Reports to another format… Click on File >> Export from the menu and then choose the type

Queries to another office product… Click on Tools >> Office Links from the menu

Other Reporting Vehicles

Job Submission (Banner) Web Report

Tables and views can change with each new release.

How do we know if there are view or table changes?

SCT Table & View Changes

The release guide will show you new and changed tables/views.

You can do a search using the find & find again buttons if you want to know if a particular table/view has changed.

Compacting the Database Compact

databases once a week

You can also set the db to

compact on close

Click Tools >> Options then choose the General tab.

Query AnalyzingThe query analyzer can be used to show helpful information such as table indexes, column properties, relationships, parameters etc. Click Tools >> Analyze >> Documenter and choose your query.

Clicking the options button allows you to specify what you want to see in the documenter

Poor Practices

Using MS Access to store and/or update information that is used for business purposes

Queries that run for an extended period of time

Poor Organization of databases Using Like or In on Key fields

Using MS Access to store and/or update information that is used for business purposes

Banner should store all operational data and Access should be used to link to that data

Data stored in Access would not be updated when a Banner transaction occurs and would therefore become out of date quickly

If Access was used to store data, hard drive (or server) storage space would quickly become an issue

Queries that run for an extended period of time

An extended period of time will vary based on the query; A query returning many records or containing many tables and views will take longer than a simple query

Closing your MS Access database does not stop the query from running behind the scenes

Poor Organization of databases

Good naming conventions on databases allow users to easily identify the database purpose the query or report purpose

Copying an entire database to get a single query is not advised; You can import the query or report into your database from another Access database; This prevents multiple copies of the same/similar databases

Using Like or In on Key fields

Using Like or In dramatically decreases query performance when used on a key field

Always specify the key field (such as Term) then if needed use like or in on a secondary field

Questions

Eric Parks

eparks@iup.edu