Planning a Database
This subpage forms part of the Microsoft Access course.
Before you can build a new Access database, you first need to plan your database.
To plan your database, you first need to understand the purpose of your database.
In other words, you will need to decide “what the database is going to be used for” (Noome et al, 2014a) and “what data is going to be stored” (Noome et al, 2014b), since that will determine “how it is going to be structured” (Noome et al, 2014b): “what fields each record will consist of” (Noome et al, 2014a), “what type of data each field should contain” (Noome et al, 2014a), “what the size of the field should be” (Noome et al, 2014a), whether “there is going to be a primary key” (Noome et al, 2014a), “what field should be used for the primary key” (Noome et al, 2014a), and “what information will need to be extracted from the database” (Noome et al, 2014a).
Entities
We will first need to determine what or who we will be storing data about. These entities could consist of clients, suppliers, services, or products [like movies] and producers [like movie studios].
Each of these entities will have their own attributes, like names, birthdays, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, prices, etc.
In a database, “the entities usually become tables” (Noome et al, 2014b), while “the attributes of these entities become the fields of a record.” (Noome et al, 2014b)
Data Types
“It is important that you select the correct data type.” (Noome et al, 2014a)
If, for example, you set the Number data type’s size, to Byte, the user will only be able to enter numbers ranging from 0 to 255.
Should the user be required to enter the number 300, “an error message will appear” (Noome et al, 2014a), which “will frustrate the user and make it impossible to save the correct value in the database.” (Noome et al, 2014a)
Primary Key
One of the most important fields in an Access database is the “primary key” (Noome et al, 2014a).
The purpose of which is to “identify each record with a unique value” (Noome et al, 2014a) to prevent duplicate entries.
“If for example you choose a person’s ID number as the primary key and accidentally type in the same ID number twice, Access will warn you that you have made an error.” (Noome et al, 2014a)
“Fields such as names or birthdays cannot be primary keys as these values are not necessarily unique.” (Noome et al, 2014a)
Sometimes a record can also have more than one field that qualify as a primary key, like an employee’s employee and ID number, in which case the other will function as an “alternate key” (Noome et al, 2014a).
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References
Noome, C., Gibson, K., Macmillan, P., & Wassermann, U. (2014a, January). IT is gr8! @ Grade 11 Theory [CAPS edition]: Module 4.1 Introduction to databases (pp. 122?138). Study Opportunities. http://www.studyopportunities.co.za
Noome, C., Gibson, K., Macmillan, P., & Wassermann, U. (2014b, January). IT is gr8! @ Grade 11 Theory [CAPS edition]: Module 4.3 Introduction to Multi-Tables (pp. 146?170). Study Opportunities. http://www.studyopportunities.co.za
📅 May 29, 2026
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