Osel - Help with Access

Every Table needs a Primary Key Index.

This is a field (Column) that uniquely identifies each record.

For example, your Customer Table has an ID which uniquely identifies each customer. Your Invoice table then only needs a field (referred to as a Foreign Key field) with this ID to relate the invoice to the ID field in the Customer Table.

Access Provides an Autokey Data Type that you can use for a Primary Key field that will create a unique number for each record automatically when the record is created.

This ID is meaningless to your users and they should probably never see it.

I've always made a habit of using a Primary Key Index in every table using the name of the table with '_ID' as the suffix. Related tables then have a column with the same name that is used to create the relationship.

By doing this, Access automatically the relationship between the two tables when you are creating queries in the rather brilliant Query Designer in Access.

However you are probably better off to just name the Primary Key field 'ID'. For reasons that go more toward future development of Access and its integrating with SharePoint (another MS application) that requires each SharePoint list to have an ID field named 'ID'. From Access 2010 onward, you will be able to use Access to develop Web applications using SharePoint Lists as an online data storage.