Integrating Excel and Access

Tackling Projects

This is probably an appropriate time to discuss how to tackle a project that would benefit from integrating Access and Excel. If this discussion doesn't make sense at first, go through the first couple of chapters and come back to it.

The very first step that you need to take, prior to starting a project that integrates Access and Excel, is to determine whether you need the power of both applications. I wouldn't suggest using both applications if you can accomplish the same task with one application and few compromises. If you decide that you do need both applications, the following model should help you perform the initial planning.

The first step in the actual project is to determine which application will serve as the primary application for the user interface. Generally, this decision should be driven by end user needs and preferences. Although there are some exceptions to this, during your initial planning, assume that the program the users see should be the one that they are most comfortable with.

The second step is to determine what information you will need from your end user. It is important to note that in some cases a project will support multiple end users with different needs. A good example is an application that has one end user who wants to input sales data and another end user who wants to create reports based on that sales data. In this example, the two users will share the same data source but will need completely different user interfaces.

Once ...