Introduction to Database Templates

Quick reference

• 00:00 In this first section of the course,
• 00:03 we're going to open up Access, launch Access and have a look
• 00:08 at some of the basic functionality that everybody needs to know.
• 00:14 So if you've downloaded and installed Access onto your PC,
• 00:17 the first thing we need to do is fire it up.
• 00:19 So I'm using Windows 11.
• 00:21 This process might be slightly different if you're using an old version of Windows,
• 00:26 but I'm going to press the Windows key.
• 00:28 Which is going to pop over my start menu.
• 00:31 And in the search bar we're just going to do a quick search for Access.
• 00:36 If you have it installed you should see at the top of the list there,
• 00:39 remember you can right click.
• 00:40 And you can pin to the start menu or
• 00:42 pin to the taskbar to make it super easy to access.
• 00:46 So let's open it up.
• 00:48 Now we're using Access 2021, which is the latest version of Access.
• 00:54 But even if you're using a slightly older version,
• 00:56 this start screen is pretty much the same.
• 00:59 And this is the terminology we use for
• 01:01 the first screen you get to when you open up Access.
• 01:04 It's called the Start screen.
• 01:06 And this is where we can come to create a new database either
• 01:10 from a blank database or using one of the inbuilt templates.
• 01:14 And it's also where we can come to do things like, create new databases or
• 01:18 open existing databases as well.
• 01:21 We also have access to our account settings from here, and
• 01:24 also Access options, which is a really, really important area,
• 01:28 because this is where you can customize how your copy of Access works.
• 01:33 And we're going to be dipping in and out of here as we go through the course.
• 01:37 Now, for the time being, we're just going to focus on this main Start screen.
• 01:41 In the new section at the top we can select a new blank database or
• 01:45 we can choose a template.
• 01:46 We have a more templates link at the end here which is going to open up the full
• 01:51 templates library and we're going to load up a template in a couple of moments.
• 01:56 Now if we click back on home just to go back to that main page, what you'll also
• 02:01 notice underneath is that I have a recent list and also a pinned list.
• 02:05 So recent is where you can find all of the databases that you've used recently.
• 02:10 And the number of different files that you see in this list is very much determined
• 02:14 by your settings in options.
• 02:16 As you can see here I have mine set to show the last 50.
• 02:19 Now if this is the first time that you are opening Access,
• 02:22 then your list is going to be empty.
• 02:24 I've been using Access for a while so mine is populated with different databases.
• 02:29 And if you have any databases that you use all the time, and
• 02:33 you want to make sure that they stay pinned to the top of the list,
• 02:37 you can right click on any of the databases and select pin to list.
• 02:42 And what that means is that then to access them, you can go to the pin section, and
• 02:46 you'll see all of your pinned databases.
• 02:48 So some really good efficiency tips, just that.
• 02:51 Now let's shift our focus to looking at templates in Access.
• 02:55 As we've already seen, we can click the more templates link.
• 02:58 Alternatively, we can go to the new area and search for our templates down here.
• 03:03 Now if you're not sure what a template is, it's basically a starting point for
• 03:07 your database.
• 03:08 So instead of just being faced with a rather intimidating blank database and
• 03:12 having to build it from scratch.
• 03:13 If you know the kind of database that you want to build it's worth having a look
• 03:17 through the template library to see if there is a template there which is
• 03:21 going to give you a really good starting point.
• 03:24 Templates in general contain pre built tables, reports, forms, queries,
• 03:29 and also things like formatting and all templates in Access are categorized based
• 03:34 on the type of template that they are.
• 03:36 And you can see underneath the search bar I have a few different categories that
• 03:41 I could click on to to have a look at the templates within those categories.
• 03:46 So let's go back and we're going to search for a template.
• 03:49 So I'm going to search for the contacts template let's type it into the search
• 03:54 bar, it pulls back a list of everything that matches my search criteria.
• 03:59 So maybe I want to create a database just to hold a list of contacts.
• 04:04 I'm going to select the template that I want to use it's going to open up in
• 04:08 a brand new window and give me a little bit of information about that template.
• 04:13 I also get to see who's providing the template.
• 04:16 So I know if it's safe or not and I would hope that this template
• 04:20 coming from Microsoft is not going to contain any nasty bugs or viruses.
• 04:24 Now at this point before we load up this template we get the option to give our
• 04:29 file a name.
• 04:29 Now, I'm not going to name this at the moment.
• 04:32 I'm going to leave it on the default name of database four.
• 04:36 Notice here, the default file extension.
• 04:38 When you're working with Access files of .accdb.
• 04:43 What it is worth doing though is making sure that you're saving all of
• 04:47 your databases into a very specific location.
• 04:50 And you can see here by default Access has selected OneDrive Documents folder for me.
• 04:55 If you want to change that just click on the folder icon and
• 04:58 you can navigate to the folder where you want to store all your files.
• 05:02 Once you're happy click on the big old Create button and
• 05:05 it's going to load that template into the main access window.
• 05:09 Notice here that I get a security warning running across the top.
• 05:13 So it's always worth checking that and
• 05:14 thinking about where you've actually downloaded this template from.
• 05:18 Now, I know this is from Microsoft.
• 05:20 So I'm going to enable content.
• 05:22 And the first thing you'll notice with templates is that some of them
• 05:25 are going to pop up with this welcome screen.
• 05:28 And the welcome screen basically just gives you a little bit of information
• 05:31 about what this template does.
• 05:33 And you can see we even have a little video which is going to walk us through
• 05:37 how to use this template.
• 05:38 Now the cool thing with these welcome screens is that when you get a bit further
• 05:42 into Access, you can completely customize these for your users.
• 05:46 So you can add your branding,
• 05:48 you can add your own text depending on how you want them to look.
• 05:51 Now it might be at this stage that you just find this welcome screen
• 05:54 quite annoying.
• 05:56 So you can disable it by simply unchecking the box at the bottom just here.
• 06:00 Now I'm not going to do that at the moment because I want to talk more about this in
• 06:04 a couple of lessons time.
• 06:06 So I'm just going to close down the welcome screen.
• 06:09 Now before we go any further, notice that the contact list is open in its own tab.
• 06:14 And whenever you open anything within a database,
• 06:16 it's going to open in a separate tab.
• 06:19 Now I'm very quickly just going to close down this database by clicking on File and
• 06:24 then Close.
• 06:25 Now if I now go back to File take a look at my recent list.
• 06:30 That database that we've just been working on database four remember
• 06:35 we didn't rename it is now at the top of the list

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