As a frequent Microsoft Office user, we got Excel and Access to take care of our tables, charts, and data. Oftentimes, we don’t know which one to use since both of them are good to handle business information. The good thing however is that you can connect your Excel table to your Access database. You may be wondering how, so let me give you reasons why these two programs are perfect for each other.
- Easy to copy data from Excel to Access Copy and paste has never been easy with Access and Excel. You may notice that when you create an Access table and display it in datasheet view, the result closely resembles an Excel worksheet. Sometimes you might not need to create a table or open it in datasheet view. Access automatically asks you if your data has headers, makes good guesses at using the correct data type, and creates an Access table.
- Easy to link Excel worksheet to Access One of the best things Microsoft did to their Office package is the ability to link programs with each other. Take the case of Excel worksheets linking to an Access table. Users can do this in case they are planning to keep the data in Excel, but perform Access features such as queries, forms, and reports. Thanks to the Linked Table Manager Wizard that helps users to track, locate, and update the Excel worksheet. Note that you can only modify, add, and delete data from your Excel worksheet and not from your Access table.
- Easy to import Excel data into Access If you don’t entertain the idea of linking both tables, you can simply import data from Access to Excel. In importing data, Access stores it in a new or existing table without changing the data existed in an Excel table. They have an Import Wizard that will help you to in the process and decide what data types and headers would you like to change or implement. Note that you cannot import formulas from Excel to Access, just the results of whatever formula there is.
- Easy to collect data using Access for Excel Analysis – Applicable in MS Office 2007 version, both Access and Outlook can work together thanks to the Data Collection Wizard. This feature generates and sends email messages with attached data entry form. Your recipients, sends them back, and then added to the appropriate table in your database as soon as the reply reaches your inbox, will fill this out. This is very helpful if you are conducting a survey, product research, status reports, and even events organization.
- Easy to combine Excel and Access with Sharepoint Both Excel and Access is capable of connecting to Sharepoint. The difference is Excel only supports read-only connection as compared with Access read and writes connection in linked Sharepoint lists. Seems like Access and Sharepoint works well together both online and offline. Users have the option of working with Access database locally and go online to update changes in the Sharepoint site.
This only proves that both Excel and Access might have differences and limitations, but working together will make your business data process easier. Imagine them like salt and pepper, so different but complements one another.