Access Help

[elader]

Good afternoon!

I am trying to get started with creating an Access database for an online fantasy wrestling league that I run.  I took Access classes in college about 12 years ago but do not really remember much. I was hoping someone could help me get moving in the right direction. Ideally I would like this to be shared on the web with the ability to edit and add records restricted to me locally.

What I have is an Excel spreadsheet that I would like to bring into Access to better manipulate and retain the data.  The Excel file contains a roster that includes things like sponsor and height, weight, etc.  It also contains a match log that shows each individual match and includes winners, losers, draw participants, finish type, etc.

There is also a championship match log and other tabs that require manual entry multiple times and is ripe for mistakes.  It seemed like Access would be the way to go!  I have imported both of the main tabs (Roster and Matches) into tables, which at this point effectively mirror the Excel spreadsheets.  For the Roster table the primary ID is unique to the wrestler and the Matches table has the ID set by Access so each match would have its own ID.

I am not sure where to go from here.  It became very confusing as I started to try to figure out how best to link the data and such.  I got to thinking that it might be better to import different things as different tables.  A table just for wrestlers, etc.

I am not sure where to go from here.  I attached the Excel file we use so you can see what I am trying to get into Access.  I was not sure how to share my database, but I literally have not gotten further than importing the data.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!  Even if you could point me in the direction of some reading to help with the project.  I was unable to find any sports win-loss record templates which I thought would have been a common thing.

Thanks for reading!

[#2]

@elader 

First, good luck with the project. I'm sure you'll find that a properly designed Relational Database Application using Microsoft Access is a great way to accomplish your goals.

That said, let's start with a caveat: Excel worksheets are generally NOT a good model to work from when you need to create a Relational Database Application (whether you use Access or another database program to do it). The key is in the "Relational" part. Excel worksheets don't lend themselves well to relational designs, so we need to be pretty cautious about going that route.

Also, we need to be careful about "sharing to the web". That can mean a couple of different things, but it generally refers to web pages in a browser interface. Is that what you intend here? If so, you need to keep in mind that Access does not support web interfaces directly. (We have had two or three now-abandoned attempts to implement that over the last couple of decades.) Your "sharing to the web" would, therefore, need to be done via an appropriate web technology, and that's a big subject in itself. But for now, that'll be on the back burner.

Step one is to invest some time in learning more about how Relational Database Applications work. And that means learning about proper table design and the process of Normalization. I've published a handful of YouTube videos on this general topic that might help you get your feet under you. In addition, you'll find a lot of useful information by searching for "Normalization" in your favorite search engine.