How To Create Navigation Forms In Microsoft Access
If you’ve used Microsoft Access for a little while, you’ll no doubt have come across different ways to navigate between the different Access objects of forms, tables, queries and reports. Access versions from 97 to 2007 give you the option of creating and using Switchboards to create your own navigation system, whilst versions 2007 and 2010 prefer you to customise the new navigation pane with your own categories and groups. Another way, though, is to create your own form based navigation system. This article describes how to create such a system.
If you intend to create your own navigation forms you first need to create one or more table, query, form and report to enable you to navigate between these items. Once this is done we can create a new Home navigation form. We can arrange that this form opens automatically when the database opens, and if you’ve add command buttons to the form you can click these to move between different tables, queries, forms and reports. To create a home navigation form we’ll do the following.
First create a new blank form, then save it with a name such as FrmHome. Then with the form still open switch to design view. The first step is to label the form, so find your way to the form Controls. In versions 97-2003 these are in the toolbox, in versions 2007/22010 these are in the Design Tab. Select the label control and draw a rectangle shape in the top part of the form. Then type in some text, such as HOME FORM. Then click off the label. To apply formatting, click once on the label, and apply formatting such as font colour, label background etc then again click off the label. Next we add a command button.
To do this return to the Form Controls and select the Command Button, or Button, and then draw a button rectangle under the heading on the form. When you release the mouse the Button wizard launches to help you apply an action to the button. So choose Form Action, click Next, then choose Open Form and again click Next. Now choose one of your existing forms and click Next.
Accept the default to show all records and click Next. Select Text for the button, and enter some appropriate text, such as the name of the form you’re opening and again click Next. Then type in a name for to button such as the target form name click Finish to complete. Then save to form and switch to form view. Test the button by clicking it, and the target form should open.
You might like to add a button in the target form, in design view, to open the Home Form by following the same steps as above. Once completed save the form and return to form view and test the button. The Home Form should open. So you can build up a series of buttons on the Home form to open other forms. On each of the other forms you can add a Home button, so you can then navigate between buttons simply by clicking a button on the Home form.
You’ll see from the options in the Button wizard that you can also open tables, queries and reports as well as forms, so you can add buttons on the Home form to open any other item in your database. If you’re interested in learning more about Microsoft Access and its many features you might like to attend a training course. This can be a really effective way to increase your Access skills in a relatively short time.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on microsoft access training london, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
Is It Time For You To Trade Up To Excel 2010?
Consumers in fast-moving retail sectors including fashion and consumer electronics welcome trade-in programmes, as they help offset the prohibitive expense of staying up-to-date with always-desirable new products with ever-shorter life spans, and often ensure that outdated items get reused or recycled. Trading-in gives us the opportunity to quickly and conveniently unlock the value of our old products, while instantly getting our hands on new, improved versions.
To reinforce this, one US-based electronics trade-in site bought 2,000 iPads in the hour after the iPad 2 was launched. Indeed, almost all electronics brands offer trade-in schemes, and this is increasingly spreading to bricks and mortar retailers, too. And it’s not just mobile phones and high-end printers that are being traded in. One global sportswear manufacturer ran a campaign to refresh your gear. Customers could get an amazing discount off of a new pair of shoes after trading in their old ones.
Whenever a new version of software is launched, it’s always a priority to know what’s new, and what works differently from the previous version. Excel 2010 offers improvements to the mathematical, financial and statistical functions. One noticeable change that Excel 2007 users will notice in Excel 2010 is that the Office button has now been replaced with the File tab.
New features include new functionality for visually displaying data such as Sparklines, additions to Pivot Tables, and the new Power Pivot add-in. There’s a new version of Sparklines and the Slicer button. And Excel spreadsheets can now run in the web browser, meaning that you can work with workbooks directly on the site where the workbook is stored. There’s also the option to share Excel via the browse and with other users and set special permissions on who can access the document.
As with the other programs in the Office 2010 suite, the Ribbon is here to stay in Excel 2010. The idea behind the Ribbon, which was introduced across the Office 2007 suite, was to make it easy for you to find commands and features that were previously buried in complex menus and toolbars.
Previously you could customise the Quick Access Toolbar in Excel 2007, but it wasn’t possible to add your own tabs or groups to the Ribbon. In Excel 2010 you can now customise the Ribbon so that you can organise it to the way you work and with the commands you use most often. Customising the Ribbon is easy and allows you to move and add commands to suit your own needs. To access the customisation tools, simply right-click any tab on the Ribbon and select the Customise The Ribbon option.
A there’s a new feature called Sparklines. Sparklines are small charts that visually show values and can be sorted into an individual cell. Sparklines give a visual snapshot image of a data trend over time within a cell. Sparklines allows you to insert similar graphic elements into sliced cells. They can show trends in a small amount of space, so they are especially useful for dashboards or other places where you need to show a snapshot of your business in an easy-to-understand visual format.
Pivot Tables, while not new, have been enhanced with Slicers. Slicers are visual controls that let you quickly filter data in a Pivot Table in an interactive, intuitive way. If you insert a Slicer, you can use buttons to quickly segment and filter the data to display just what you need.
In addition, when you apply more than one filter to your Pivot Table, you no longer have to open a list to see which filters are applied to the data. Instead, it is shown there on the screen in the Slicer. You can make Slicers match your workbook formatting and easily reuse them in other PivotTables, PivotCharts, and cube functions.
Slicers enable users to create tables that dynamically filter and segment data. Slicers also allow users to drop down in a Pivot Table to get the desired results, PowerPivot allows non-technical users to load large stat sets and perform complex reporting functions with the familiar Excel interface.
The advanced reporting and functionality is party enabled by the 64-bit support that was introduced in the 2010 release. The increase to 64-bit means that users can now handle large amounts of data due to the removal of the 4GB limitation on accessible memory. In short, you can now create larger workbooks with more rows, charts and Pivot Tables without being restricted by a slow PC. So if you’re thinking of trading in your spreadsheet software – don’t! Trade up to Excel 2010 instead.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on excel training courses uk, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
How To Make Your Audience Tune Into Your Presentation
Music is often an afterthought when it comes to designing and delivering a PowerPoint presentation, and it’s frequently used for nothing more than background noise. However, by giving some thought about how music is going to be used in your PowerPoint presentation, you can help create a number of benefits for you and your audience.
Some of us use sounds in our presentations to grab attention – that well-known gun fire, or exploding bomb noise, or the round of applause. But adding in music from a CD can deliver more impact and help create the perfect ambiance. Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 has a range of functions that enable you to add in sounds to your presentation.
There may be times when you will have the undivided attention of your audience – and there will be times when people’s attention starts to drift away. We are capable of concentrating completely on a delivery for not more than 10 minutes without any thought interruption. During your presentation you may be sharing new information; so try to deliver this after the settling in and before the switching off period.
The first step in planning music for your presentation is to identify different learning stages during your slide show. This helps you to plan out any music you are going to include in your presentation. For example, focus music is a good way to get your audience’s attention while selling them your initial pitch. A good example of focus music would be a piece in the Classical-style, but not too slow a tempo. And music can also create a sense of energy and help stimulate some of your audience.
It’s good to identify the mood you want to evoke at each stage of your PowerPoint presentation. Then you can select the music to create this mood. Sounds that work on your presentation can be as simple as a sound effect or more content-specific such as recorded speech. Three types of sound files that can be added to your PowerPoint presentation include audio files stored on your computer, sound files included with PowerPoint, and audio tracks from an audio CD.
You might decide to only add music to certain sections of your presentation, or to just a few slides. Think about using music only when it will have a positive impact on how your audience will view, listen, learn and remember your presentation. Remember that slower tempo music is good for when new information is being given. Faster tempo music is suited to activities that require more input from your audience. And instrumental music distracts less than music with vocals.
To play an audio CD track during a presentation, click the slide (in either Slide or Outline view) to which you want to add an audio file. Then insert an audio CD in your computer’s drive. Click the Insert tab, and then click the down-pointing arrow underneath the Sound icon in the Media Clips group. A pull-down menu will appear and you can choose Play the CD Audio Track. The Insert CD Audio dialog box appears to enable you to choose which CD track to play. Click in the Start at Track and End at Track text boxes to choose one or more tracks to play. Click in the Seconds text boxes to define the time to start playing the audio track and the time to end it, then click OK.
PowerPoint adds your audio track to the currently displayed slide (represented as a horn icon) and displays a dialog box, asking whether you want the sound to play automatically or when you click the mouse. Just click automatically or When Clicked. PowerPoint displays your audio file as a sound icon on your slide. You may want to move the sound icon on your slide so it doesn’t obscure part of your slide.
You won’t hear your sound file play until you view your slide show by pressing F5. And remember, if you copy your presentation to play on another computer, you must have access to the audio CD, too. Be careful of copyright infringement when using audio CDs. Make sure that you have the necessary permission to use copyrighted material. As well as your own collections, you can access free music downloads from different websites. If your presentation is intended for commercial use, you must get permission from the copyright owner for both the words and music.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on powerpoint training courses uk, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
Experience: A Vital Resource For Any Company
There’s not a company in the world that won’t benefit from making the most of the resources available to it. What these resources are may vary between organisations – for instance, raw materials that need to be used efficiently or effectively – whilst there are certain resources that are common to all businesses, such as the time available for work. And, of course, there’s the most important and most limiting resource of all, money, the one whose ups and downs dictate so much else that goes on in the company.
However, there’s a further vital resource, common to nearly every business, which is all too often overlooked – yet which can play a key role in the growth of the organisation. That resource is experience, easily ignored in the rush for the new, but overlooked at the peril of any business.
What do we mean by experience? It may refer to individuals who have spent a long time with the organisation, and are very familiar with its workings and the market in which it operates; it may be those employees who have a lot of experience in a particular kind of work, a certain system or method; or it may simply be those with many years working in an area in general. Whichever may be true, they’ll have knowledge that can’t be easily replaced or replicated.
So, if we’ve identified experience in our company, recognised its value and sought to maintain it, what do we do with it? We share the wealth. Mentoring allows an experienced employee to work with a comparative newcomer, and to pass on the benefit of all that unique knowledge.
Countless business situations can be improved through tweaking methods and techniques – those little changes to an approach that are learnt through performing the task time and again, and identifying little areas where time can be saved or productivity increased; with mentoring, these improved techniques aren’t only the preserve of those who’ve been with the company long enough to develop them, but can be understood across the board, to the benefit of everyone within the business.
Yet mentoring isn’t just a matter of teaching. It’s also about supporting. Life isn’t predictable, and any day in business can throw up all manner of unexpected obstacles, questions and problems. Experience can teach how to deal with whatever may be thrown in the company’s path, to deal with it effectively and to the advantage of the organisation – and making sure that experience is available to solve those problems can make a real difference for any business in any situation.
The final, and in many ways the most significant, benefit of having a mentoring system to make the most of that experience resource is that it’s ongoing, the gift that just keeps on giving. When an experienced individual passes on their knowledge to a newcomer, that doubles the number of people within your organisation who have that knowledge, who know the best techniques and methods – but then, that newcomer can also play a role as mentor, and further spread the advantages throughout the organisation.
Once the mentoring process is in full swing, there’s no reason for it ever to stop. And being able to make the most of a key resource, and to keep getting the most from it as weeks and months and years go by, that is always good news for any organisation.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on mentoring skills course london, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net
Creating Error Alerts In Excel Using Data Validation
I have recently been getting in some late-season camping with my partner before putting my tent away for the winter. The light, balmy evenings of summer have been replaced by cooler, moonlit ones where darkness comes early, and the temperature drops considerably through the night, but we have some decent equipment and we were comfortable enough.
One of the benefits of camping so late in the season is that the campsite tariffs return to low season rates, which are significantly cheaper; 5.00 GBP per night at the site I was on. This site is open all year round and the site owner told me that a lot of campers turn out for bonfire night and so another trip might be on the cards. And it is this change from low season to high season that will provide an illustration of one of Excel’s many useful functions, the error message.
Our scenario is a campsite that is open all year round. Potential campers can book online using an Excel sheet. As high season ended and the cheaper low season has begun, the campsite owner wants to inform potential visitors of these cheaper rates. Here’s how he could achieve this through the use of an error message.
In column A3 type Date of Arrival. The next cell in the row, B3 is where the camper will enter the date of their intended arrival on the site. It is this cell that we wish to modify through Data Validation.
With B3 selected, click on Data and select Validation from the list. This will open up the Data Validation dialog box. The first thing to do is select the type of error alert you wish to put in place. Click on the Error Alert tab and from the Style drop down list select the required type of message, in this case Information (it is worth making note of the other options for possible future use; Stop and Warning). Selecting Information will bring up the familiar icon of a lower-case letter I in a speech bubble.
With the type of error set, you can type in the message you wish to appear when a certain value is entered into that cell. In my case I want to create an alert that tells the enquirer that the arrival date they entered is subject to the low season tariff. In the Title box I typed ‘Low Season Tariff’, and in the Error box I typed the following message:
“Please note that on the date you selected the site will be operating low season tariffs.”
Now that we have our message set up, we need to enter the dates that will trigger the alert. It is important to note that validating data in this way will require dates outside of the parameters I set to trigger the alert. So in the Data Validation dialog box I click on the Allow arrow and then select Date from the list. In the Data list I select Between, and then I enter the start and end dates as the start and end of high season – i.e., 03/05/2012 to 30/09/2012. Any date outside of these parameters, such as November 5th this year, that is entered will trigger the information alert.
This example offers information only. It does not prevent further advancement and the user can go on to book his camping trip, aware that he will be paying the low season tariff. The other options in the Error Alert tab also have their uses.
If the campsite closed for the winter, say from 1st October 2011 to 3rd May 2012, then a different error message could be set up to inform the user that the site is closed. Just as before the Date of Arrival cell would be selected and the Data Validation dialog box opened. This time the under the Error Alert tab, the style Stop is chosen to bring up another familiar icon, the white x inside a red disc.
In the Title box type the alert “Site Closed!” And in the Error box type the following message:
“This site will be closed on the date you selected”.
Select the Settings tab and again insert the dates that will not trigger the error message, in this case the dates the site will be open next year: 03/05/2012 to 30/09/2012. Any date prior to the opening date of the site will trigger the error alert and, unlike the information alert above, the user will not be able to continue. The options available will be Retry or Cancel.
Excel has a multitude of tricks up its sleeve that can create so much more than basic values in cells. It is well worth taking the time to familiarise yourself with as many as possible.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on excel training courses uk, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net