Lesson 1

Thus far, in working with Access and these courses you have been using forms and reports by highlighting and opening them directly from the Database window. You have also been opening (Select) and running (Action) queries directly from the Database window. While this is fine when you are working with a small database once in a while by yourself, when you have other people use your database, or run a series of queries frequently, using the objects directly is not as convenient. What you will want to do is to use an automated method for performing these tasks. This is where Access macros come in.
When working in Access, you will discover that certain jobs become repetitive. Performing tasks, such as frequently running a series of queries or having other people use your database can become tedious if done manually each time. Access macros can make your job easier by allowing you to automate these tasks without having to learn a programming language such as Visual Basic. However, as I will discuss later in the lesson, a subset of Visual Basic called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is included in Access and allows developers to perform complex applications.

This module is designed to help you understand how and where to use Access macros. In this module, you will learn how to:

1. Determine the usefulness of an Access macro
2. Use the Access Macro Builder to create and run an Access macro
3. Assign a macro to a command button on a form
4. Run different types of queries by using macros
5. Work with some other useful macros that are available in Access

In the next lesson, you'll learn how to determine the usefulness of an Access macro.

Access 2010 introduced a newly redesigned Macro Designer, which in many respects was an improvement over the old design surface of previous versions of Access. If you have skipped using macros in Access 2010, you will want to get familiar with them when building macros for web apps.
Even if you have worked with the Macro Designer, you may be delighted to learn that the newest version of designer offers some UI features that make it easier to work with macros. Because the Macro Designer is much more structured than what you may be used to in the Visual Basic Editor, we will lead you through the process of building a macro in the Macro Designer to help you understand how it is set up. You will see that it enables you to use the powerful combination of data blocks, data actions, and program fl ow blocks to create powerful data macros.
With these tools, you can use queries, parameters, values returned from other macros, filters, expressions, and more. You can use the Macro Designer to incorporate complex business logic in your web apps .