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Each table will appear in the query designer. Click the ‘Close’ button when you are done.
You will notice that the tables are linked via CustomerID. This is because once again Access recognises fields with identical names and assumes it is the primary and foreign key.
In the customers table double click the FirstName and LastName fields. You will notice these fields appear in the grid. Double click the OrderDate, ProductNumber and Price fields from the Sales table. These will also appear in the grid.
Click the Run button at the top menu
Depending on the number of records you added to the system you will see something similar to the following:
Although this gives us a quick overview we can also get a more useful picture by grouping data.
Click the design button
Remove the OrderDate field by clicking the bar above the name until the column highlights.
Do the same with the ‘Product Number’ field
You should now be left with a display as follows:
We now want to group the names and sum so that we can get an overall total for each person.
On the menu bar click the grouping button
You should now have
We can now see that the data has been grouped for each person and we get a running total of what they have purchased.
Go back to the design view of the query and enter the first and last name into the grid.
Click the ‘Run’ button and you should see and individual total record
I hope I have given you some useful tips on how to get started with MS Access and what can be achieved. I cover things in greater detail in further ebooks and videos.
Access is a very powerful database tool and one that can take your business forward.