{"id":3388,"date":"2015-05-18T08:10:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T13:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mdmproofing.com\/iym\/weblog\/?p=3388"},"modified":"2015-05-24T17:33:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T22:33:09","slug":"excel-or-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mdmproofing.com\/iym\/weblog\/2015\/05\/excel-or-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Excel or Access?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a hard truth to learn, and it took years for me to learn it, but facts is facts: <\/p>\n

There are times when Excel just isn’t the right tool for the job.<\/b><\/p>\n

Now, Excel and I get along swimmingly. I’ve devoted hundreds of hours to learning its “ins and outs,” and I regret none of that. To this day, I still get a little giddy when I discover a new function that’ll be useful to me somehow.<\/p>\n

But darn it, Excel just isn’t the right tool for managing data … especially if it’s relational data. (“Relational data” meaning that data in this table over here has a specific relationship to data in that table over there … and maybe even more tables of other data beyond that.)<\/p>\n

Excel Was My Best Friend.
\nAccess Was a Weird Guy Across the Street. (Nobody Talks to That Guy.)<\/h3>\n

I can’t remember when I was first introduced to Excel — probably the mid- to late-1990s — but I was a fan from Moment One. I also can’t remember when I was first introduced to Access (the database program Microsoft bundles with its Office suite), but it was probably ten years later, if not more. It took me a long while to figure out why anyone would bother with Access. Excel was SO much easier to learn and implement for whatever tasks I had at hand. In fact, at my Day Job, while Excel licenses were utilized by just about every employee in the place, it wasn’t until a few years ago that Access licenses were made available — and even then it was by request only.<\/p>\n

So without knowing it, early in my career, I was trying to shoehorn Excel into doing data-management jobs for which it wasn’t really built. One particular spreadsheet I created, maintained, and added data to over 15+ years, across multiple worksheets … only to find out last year why it should’ve been exported to an Access (or similar) database long, long ago. <\/p>\n

(When you need to search for, say, multiple part numbers across about 20 separate worksheets, you figure out pretty fast just why a good relational database is as valuable as it is. And why Excel isn’t good for that AT ALL.)<\/p>\n

So now I have this Excel spreadsheet with 15 years of work-related data crammed into it. It’s not unusable by any stretch, but depending on the searching that needs to be done, it can be, uh, ungainly. At best.<\/p>\n

For THAT data-management job, I should’ve used Access. I’d be much better off now.<\/p>\n

Excel vs. Access: Which Tool for the Job?<\/h3>\n

So, having lived and learned, here are MY thought processes for deciding whether to use Excel or Access for any given job:<\/p>\n