DATABASE APPLICATIONS

Business Related Database Applications

Business Related Database Applications

Introduction

Information technology and information systems are widely in use by the business organization today, in order to increase their productivity and improve the efficiency of their business operations (Applegate, 2009). One of the important information technology processes from the organizational perspective is information storage and retrieval. Data storage and retrieval is the fundamental information technology process associated with every organization. It deals with keeping the data stored in an organized form, which facilitates the later access (info please, 2012). Over the past few decades, high speed computers, and efficient data storage techniques have boosted up the information storage and retrieval processes.

This paper is written to demonstrate my ability to develop and implement a business related database using MS Access. MS Access is database management software, which integrates the relational database hierarchy with the graphical user interface providing the greater ease of use (Roy, 2010). This database management system uses its own format (Access Jet Database Engine) for storing the data. Several other applications such as Microsoft SQL server and Oracle use Microsoft Access at the front end for their packages. It well suits to the needs of little organizations or personal use as it not only provides with the data storage capabilities, but it is a complete database management package. It allows the development of fully interactive user interface. The users can enter the data, generate customized queries, forms, macros, switchboards, and report on data with great ease using the familiar MS office environment. These features enable the software developers and users to develop customize applications according to their needs very quickly. MS Access is more suitable for small scale users, as they often need to share their data. There is more probability for a person to have MS Access installed on his desktop rather than SQL server. Therefore, if a user needs to email the database file to another team member, MS Access is more convenient to use.

PART ONE - The Design specification

I have developed a business application using MS Access which would be used for recording the details of orders made by customers. The database is based on relational database concepts, and data can be retrieved using the primary and foreign key concepts, as would be explained by the design of queries in later section of the paper. The application can be used by the operational or managerial staff according to their needs. For example, an employee carrying out transactions can simply enter the information using user friendly interfaces (such as forms) and the managers can view the summarized information with the help of customized generated queries and reports.

Tables

It is a small database with five main tables; customer, item, order detail, order master and pending. The snapshots of these tables are given below in tables 1-5.

Table 1: Customer

Table 2: Item

Table 3: Order Detail

Table 4: Order Master

Table 5: Pending

As shown above, table 1 includes the details about the customer's code, name, address and ...