Introduction

Access 97 SmartStart Instructor's Manual is designed for the use of the classroom instructor. The author has made every effort to give you useful and practical information.

Adoption of the Access 97 SmartStart text for a course entitles you to copy any portion of this instructor's manual (both printed and disk copies) for class use. You also may copy text and data files to a network for class use with the Essentials text.

You may adapt this text for courses of different lengths, for use with other Essentials in longer courses, or for use in both lecture and laboratory settings. In this manual, you will find the following information.

Objectives/Summary for each chapter.

"On Your Mark" questions and thoughts to help launch the class session.

Analogies to make computer concepts understandable for most users.

"Quicksand"—problems or challenges you may encounter when presenting this information in a class setting.

"Speedy Class"—Thoughts about ways you can extend or add to the material if you have extra time at the end of the chapter.

Answers to "Checking Your Skills"—Includes answers to every question, along with a reference to where the answer can be found in the text.

Answers to "Applying Your Skills"—Includes the step-by-step procedure for completing each exercise, along with a screen shot, if necessary.

Additional hands-on projects with solutions—Provide additional hands-on practice.

Test Questions and Answers—Ten each of true/false, multiple choice, completion and screen identification test questions and answers.

Curriculum Guide. The curriculum guide suggests course outlines for sessions of different lengths. You can use this chart as a guide for planning your individual course work.

Access 97 SmartStart Instructor's Manual on Disk. The files containing the content of this instructor's manual are in Word 97 and ASCII file format on the CD-ROM in the back of this manual. You may load these files into your word processing program and add your own lecture notes, questions, and additional material to customize your course. You may also want to print sections for handouts, including the answers to the test questions and "Applying Your Skills" exercises.

We welcome your comments. If you find errors in this book, please write to us. Address your letter to Que Education and Training, 201 West 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290.

Corporate Training Information

This section provides information for the corporate trainer. Included is a revised time chart for one-day, two-day, three-day, and one-week classes. The time allocated is intended to be relative as your needs and situation will differ from any set schedule. The intent is to provide a list of the relative importance of each of the areas, with the more basic items being selected first.

Additional ideas and suggestions are provided for incorporating work-related activities into the classroom. Finally, suggestions are given for dealing with students who are progressing at a different pace or have individual needs.

Corporate training managers do not want canned presentations. They require and will pay for personalized training sessions. When providing such training, always communicate with the department manager, request examples of work that is currently being done and develop a personalized training session that satisfies the specific needs of the audience. More time is involved, but it is well worth the effort.

Curriculum Guide

Access 97 Essentials Training Time Chart

Additional Chapter Ideas

In each of the chapters there is a Speedy Class section which proposes additional projects the students can complete that augment the training or help them prepare for future chapters. These projects are based on what they are doing in that chapter or will be doing in future chapters. Much of the time the Speedy Class tasks are geared toward reinforcing the lesson material. In most cases, you should not attempt to explore these additional tasks unless you have a number of days for the total instruction. These Speedy Class sections are summarized below.

Chapter 1

The first chapter of the book provides the students with an overview of Access, what it is, and how the software works. Along with the software, the students would benefit from gaining a thorough understanding of the help system. Most of their questions have been answered in one form or another in the help system and, once they are comfortable with how the system operates, they will be able to progress without an instructor standing over them.

Chapter 2

In this chapter, students learn about creating and changing tables. Tables are the foundation blocks of an Access database. In tables, fields are the building blocks. To understand and use fields effectively, the students must understand how to set and manipulate their properties. Additional time in this chapter would best be spent exploring the various properties that can be set for each of the data types.

Chapter 3

Good queries effectively ask questions of the data in a database. By understanding wildcards and comparison operators, the students can greatly enhance the flexibility and power of seemingly simple queries. If time is available, reinforce training in this area.

Chapter 4

This is the first of two chapters on forms. Advanced students will want to explore adding custom controls to their forms to enhance them. The first step in this process is finding out Access' capabilities. Additional time in this chapter can be spent covering the different tools in the toolbox; what they are and how they work.

Chapter 5

The step beyond creating a form is creating a form within a form and understanding the interaction. Subforms can be very complex and additional time spent on their use would provide students with the most effective use of their time.

Chapter 6

Putting the output in a useful form through summarizing reports can sometimes be an art. The problem is that most companies don't have the time to find the requisite artists. The students will learn how to create basic reports in this chapter. Some additional time researching in the help system will show them how to expand their knowledge to include some very useful cross-
tabulations and multi-column reports.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 provides the students with additional control of their databases through macros. The most essential part of the macros is the action commands used to activate certain processes. Additional time spent learning these different commands will enable the students to create truly flexible systems.

Chapter 8

This chapter covers the sharing of data between applications. The ability to import and export information greatly enhances the utility of Access. The students will learn most of the tools necessary to accomplish this in their lesson. As an added exercise, collect files and tables from various sources and have the students import those into Access. To make the task interesting, don't provide any clues. Advanced students will thrive on the challenge.

Chapter 9

The students will learn more of the process of building a database in this chapter. Since they already know the objects that make up a database, they will learn to plan a database. One of the important aspects of planning is finding out what the customer needs and wants. This involves the interview process. Spending time on the preparation and research steps will help the students understand what an important part they play in the entire process.

Chapter 10

This last chapter illustrates how to publish database information to the Web. They will be creating static sites that do not permit searching. However, they should be aware of how databases are being used on the Internet. Have them "reverse engineer" some sites on the Internet to see how they were designed.

Additional Suggestions

You may have one or two students who have not used Windows 95 and are learning computers for the first time. If at all possible, have these students enroll in a basic Windows 95 class first. While it is not required that the student know Windows 95 before taking this course, their lack of

basic navigational and item selection skills can severely hamper your ability to teach the remaining students. These "initiates" will require a significant amount of personal tutoring throughout the class if they are to learn the material and keep up with the other students.

To get the student's attention after a lunch break or well in to the course, you may want to demonstrate something unique and interesting about the software. One of these is the Easter Egg called the "Magic Eight Ball." Have the students select the Macro tab in the database window. Next select New. They do not have to enter anything in the macro window, rather have them save the blank macro with the name "Magic Eight Ball" and then close the window. The macro name will appear in the macro tab of the database window. Next, have them drag the macro name to either the menu or the toolbar. An Eight Ball icon will appear. For fun they can ask the eight
ball a question and then select it. The same type of cryptic message will appear as on the children's toy.

This text assumes you are using Access 97. Since the release of Access 97, a general update has been issued called Microsoft Office 97 Service Release 1 Patch. This patch should not effect the material in this text directly but may effect some of the interoperability issues with other Microsoft products.

One final consideration for this text. The last chapter of the text covers publishing the presentation to the Internet or an intranet. This text assumes that you are using Internet Explorer and not Netscape. The text has been tested with Netscape with virtually identical results. Since only static Web pages are produced, both browsers can display them. If you are using Netscape, you may want to test each step yourself to ensure you are aware of any unique differences.