Archive for the ‘Access Queries’ Category

Formatting Access Queries to the Thousands Place

October 24th, 2011

In an Email last week, Christina asks:

“Do you know of an easy way to show Access query results in thousands?
Thanks DataPig.You are the like that black bird on Angry Birds – the bomb.”

Ok….so I added that last sentence. But Christina did ask a pretty good question.

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Here’s how you can format Access query fields so that they show as thousands.

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You first start with a working query. As you can see, this query shows revenue by market with an indication of how much of that revenue comes from Internet Sales. You’ll notice that the revenue columns inundate you with lots of numbers. That is to say, the revenue columns are difficult to read. Showing these columns in thousands would help readability.
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Changing Sort Order of Access Crosstab Headings

February 14th, 2011

By default, Access Crosstab queries sort their column headings in alphabetical order. This is becomes a real drag when you’re struggling to show months in month order instead of alphabetical order.

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This screenshot shows the mess that comes from running a Crosstab with month columns. According to Access, April is the first month of the year.
» More: Changing Sort Order of Access Crosstab Headings

Creating Access UDFs that Accept Arguments

November 4th, 2010

This week, I showed you how to Create and Use your own Access User Defined Functions (UDFs). Today, I’d like to take that one step further and show you how to create an Access UDF that accepts arguments.

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Converting Text to Proper Case in Access

August 16th, 2010

Wendy writes to ask:

“In Excel, I can use the PROPER function to change my text to proper case. Why is there is no PROPER function in Access? “

Wendy has stumbled on one of the mysteries of life – there are many functions you use in Excel that are not found in Access. Well…it’s not really a mystery. I actually have an idea why this may be.

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Adding Trend Icons to Access Queries

March 23rd, 2010

With the release of Office 2007, Excel introduced cool new conditional formatting rules that gave you the ability to show dashboard-esque icons inside cells. With these icons, you can represent performance using different shapes and colors.

 

As usual, Access gets the short end of the visualization stick. No such functionality exists in your cache of Access tools. But today, I’ll show you how to hack your way into showing dashboard-esque icons in Access queries.

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Using Dashboard Graphics in Access

January 7th, 2010

Let’s face it, Access isn’t typically a tool you would think of when considering a dashboarding platform. The reporting tools in Access, as slick as they are, don’t lend themselves to visualizations.

That is, Access doesn’t offer a whole lot in the way of dashboarding graphics. Sure, it has charts and conditional formatting, but nothing like Excel.

 

In this post, I’ll show you a hack to spruce up your Access reporting by using your own dashboarding graphics.

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The Benefits of a Good Technical Editor

December 4th, 2009

I’m in the process of writing my Pulitzer worthy book “An Excel Analyst’s guide to Access”.  During the writing process, chapters get reviewed by a team of editors – one of which is a Technical Editor. 

The Technical Editor on this book is Dick Kusleika (Daily Dose of Excel).  Kusleika is one of the better technical editors I’ve worked with.  I think his accountant’s detail-oriented brain lends itself nicely to tech editing. 

Quick  Joke:  Did you hear about extroverted accountant?  He looks down at your shoes. 

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During his editing, Kusleika pointed out that that the serial dates in Access actually start at December 31, 1899 (not January 1, 1900 like in Excel). 

» More: The Benefits of a Good Technical Editor

Documenting Access Queries in Excel

October 26th, 2009

Clients usually have this pesky need to have everything documented. As a generally lazy person, this offends my lackadaisical attitude. Nevertheless, I typically oblige, given the fact that I want them to take over the work at some point.

 

Over the years, I’ve rolled my own documentation tools to help in this endeavor. Today, I want to share a small procedure I use to document Access queries in Excel.

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Getting to Workdays in Access

October 22nd, 2009

Suppose you’ve been asked to provide some reporting in Access, but only for those dates that are company workdays (workdays are defined as days that are not weekends or holidays). In Excel, you have the NETWORKDAYS function to help you out. But in Access, you’re on your own. There is no such function in Access.

 

Well, it’s your lucky day.  Today, I’ll show you an easy way to query only workdays in Access.

  » More: Getting to Workdays in Access

Running an Access Parameter Query from Excel

October 19th, 2009

An Access parameter query is a kind of interactive query that prompts you for criteria before the query is run. Parameter queries are useful when you need to ask the query different questions using different criteria each time you run it.

Now we all know you can pull data from Access into Excel using MS Query. The problem is that MS Query doesn’t let you pull in Parameter queries. There may be a technical reason for this, but I like to think it’s just Microsoft’s way of keeping things interesting. After all, technical roadblocks are the spice of life.
If you’ve had enough spice, I’ll show you a VBA workaround that will enable you to run an Access parameter query from Excel.

  » More: Running an Access Parameter Query from Excel