After you've built a few Access database applications, you inevitably come up against this problem: the arrangement of your data in tables is not the arrangement you want on reports. Frequently, values appear vertically in a table, but you want them to appear horizontally on the report. Luckily, crosstab queries provide a quick way to "pivot" the data to the way you want it. Luke Chung of FMS, Inc. provides a great tutorial on crosstabs in this article on the FMS site. Check out more Access...

Steve Bailey recently emailed us about changes to the SageKey product line and a special discount they are offering: SageKey Software has been busy building new products to provide the right solution to the common installation issues. As usual we’d like to offer a discount to readers of this Blog. Not only have we added more functionality to our installation wizards as per customer requests but we’ve broken our products out into functional versions. One request we get a lot is to create a solution...

Kingsway Financial Assessments provides independent financial assessment reports and credit reports to support decision making when awarding contracts and tenders. Kingsway uses an Access database built by Hockley Computer Services using Goldsoft . Ken Hockley is today's guest blogger. I’ve been using SQL statements in temporary Access tables to extract data to Excel for some time now (simple data dump). The client has a form which shows a selection of the tables and fields in their system. In this...

Brandon from OpenGate recently sent email about a special offer for blog readers for the latest version of Designer for Microsoft Access. Check it out. OpenGate Software is offering 50% off their new version 3.0 of Designer for Microsoft Access .   Designer creates a normalized Access database after users follow a simple Q&A format wizard to define what they want to track in their database.  The newest release automatically generates complex data entry forms with all related information...

Tony D'Ambra of aadconsulting.com , maker of Access add-ins and switchboards, wanted to share his method for providing help to users when and where they need it. In Access, the functionality of tool tips has not changed since they were introduced in Access 95 ten years ago. In a free sample Access 2000 database Cool Tool Tips, which you can download here , I have implemented a more functional and controllable paradigm, which also looks great. If you have an application that is to any degree complex...

Want to ensure your application runs seamlessly in Access 2010 and hang out with the Access team? We have a 3 day developer kitchen on the Redmond Campus from September 14-16 th . You will hear the product vision, run your applications in the latest builds, interact with the product team and network with other members of the Access community. Time spent will concentrate on upgrading existing Access applications to Access 2010 and building Access 2010 applications. Who should come? Space is limited...

Today's guest blogger is Access MVP Glenn Lloyd of Argee Services. Check out his Office help blog and Access Help and Tutorial Blog . In working with applications that require scheduling, I often find a need for a list of all calendar dates within a specified time frame. Using Cartesian Product makes generating this list quite straightforward. The technique requires three tables. The first two for days and months are static once created and populated. The days table has a single field with 31 records...

Last week we outlined improvements to the Access 2010 macro designer , parameter support , and IntelliSense . These improvements build upon Access 2007 macro improvements of macro sandbox, embedded macros, TempVars, debugging, and support for error handling. The natural next step in macros is to provide a model for business rules. Data macros allow developers to attach logic to record/table events (similar to SQL triggers). This means you write logic in one place and all forms and code that updates...

Excel MVP Michael Alexander wanted to share one VBA-free method that he uses to combine multiple Excel worksheets into one data set. Ahh, the classic story. Boy gets job. Boy becomes the department data collector. Boy meets 25 Admins who send him a spreadsheet every week. Boy copies and pastes into one workbook. Boy lights himself on fire. Combining multiple Excel worksheets into one data table is such a common task, I would bet a pound of bacon that most of us have been through that ordeal once...

The Expression Builder sports new features and simpler UI in Access 2010. You will spend less effort thinking about syntax and available functions/properties because IntelliSense features provide all the information you need as you type. Expression Builder The first thing you’ll notice about the dialog is that we used a little technique called progressive disclosure to focus the user experience. Gone are the operator buttons to make room for a larger edit surface. Only show expressions that are allowed...