Access Application Development Using VBA

Course Specifications

Course Length:  3 Days, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm
We hope to include a fourth day for students to develop their own projects.

Location: Entre Technology Services, LLC  1501 N. 14th St. West, Suite 1511

Registration: Call your Account Manager at 406.256.5700 or use our Registration Forms

Course Description

This course will teach database scoping, form design, programming concepts and how to add simple functionality to a Microsoft Access database using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications.

Prerequisites

To ensure the successful completion of Access 2003 Application Development Using VBA, we recommend completion of Access Level 1, 2 and 3 or equivalent knowledge.  Students should have a minimum of six months experience using Microsoft Access and be able to:

Design a relational database
Create a database with multiple tables, forms and reports
Create queries

Performance-Based Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Design a database
Deploy Microsoft Access based applications
Use the programming capabilities of Microsoft Visual Basic for Application in Microsoft Access applications to write custom functions and event-driven procedures
Validate data
Find and trap errors
Gain access to and manipulate data in tables using ActivX Data Objects (ADO) and Structured Query Language (SQL)
Create a custom switchboard for an Access application

Course Content

Module 1: Access Application Development

Terms
Application Development Focuses On Users    
Users See Forms and Reports 
User Criteria For Good or Bad Application
The Intuitive Application
Users: Information Users and Data Users
Information Users: Reports
Data Users: People Who Enter And Work With Data In The Application

Module 2: Basic Rules Of Application Development

Operations Is The Dog, Data Is The Tail
Design For Users From The Beginning
Develop With User Partners

Module 3: Object Naming

Geekspeak Rules
Database Objects
Fields
Variables
Controls On Forms And Reports
Userspeak and Captions

Module 4: Forms

Switchboards
Data Entry Forms
Sub-form Layouts
The Organization form

Module 5: Queries

Query, Child Of Query
Math Operations
Concatenations
Iif Functions
Advanced Criteria

Module 6: Some Special Report Features

Report Templates
Report Hocus-Pocus

Code

Module 7: Basics of Code

Accuracy
Must Use Correct Syntax
Document As You Go With Comments
Minimum Steps To Do The Job (“Tight”)

Module 8: Code Structure

Modules
Properties, Methods, Events
Procedures
Statements

Module 9: Procedures: Subs and Functions

Subs
Functions
Procedure scope

Module 10: Variables And Data Types

Numbers
Text
Boolean
Date/Time
Database Objects And Controls

Module 11: Variable Scope

Procedure
Module
Procedure Scope

Module 12: Writing code

Using The VisualBasic Window
Typing In The VB Window
Syntax Check As You Type
Auto-Complete Tools
Indenting Code Segments
The DoCmd and RunCommand Tools
Calling Procedures

Module 13: MsgBox and InputBox Functions

MsgBox Responds To User/Program Action
InputBox Receives User Input For A Variable

Module 14: Assigning Values To Variables

Value From A Control
Value From User Input
Value Assigned Directly

Module 15: Formatting A Text Field

Module 16: Selective Code

If – Then
Select Case

Module 17: Looping Code 

Do While, Do Until
For – Next (Password-Protect Count)

Module 18: Methods to Activate Code

Controls To Trigger Events
Control Events
Objects and Procedures

Module 19: Debugging code

Two Classes of Errors
Error Trapping
MsgBox
Breakpoints

Module 20: Code Applications

Two Core Form Functions And A Maybe
Math Expressions And Value-Setting In Fields
Rollup From Subform To Main Form

Module 21: Security

Module 22: Application Startup Settings

Module 23: Pack and Deployment

Two Forms of Access
Two Forms Of Access Application Files
Packing The Application

Module 24: Documentation

Using Word or PowerPoint to write user manuals
Determine User Tasks
Select A Sequence of Tasks for Instructions
Create the Outline and Text
PrintScreen and paste
Modify Screen Images
Other Image Alternatives
Formatting and Linking Paragraphs