Postal Codes

Field Card Type

Field: Card Number

Testing Validation:
Now I need to ensure that the validations I have given work correctly with the
data, I am going to reimport the database from the text file to a copy of the
database with the validations. To do this, first I select the table and right click
on it and then click copy.

Now Access will ask for a name for the new table and ask for Past options. We
are going to select Structure Only since we only to create an empty table
with the same structure. Then Click Ok.

But now we do not want to create a new table we rather want to import the
database to an existing table. So, we select Append a copt of the records to
the table: and select the table we want to import to.

Now we should compare the newly imported database with the old one and
try to find any changes. If there are no more changes, it means that the
validations rules work correctly.

Analyzing the table (7 Steps):

The Imported database contains many types of fields in one table. This is not
a quite efficient method for storing data. So, we are now going to use a table
analyzer to split the table in multiple parts so that it is much easier to
navigate throughout the records.

Step1: Click on the DATABASE TOOLS tab.

Step 3: The Table Analyzer Wizard will pop up. The first two pages will tell
you how the table analyzer works. Click Next.

Step 4: Now select the table you want to Analyze. In this case, I can
select any of the two tables since they both are the same. (Also, you
do not want the see the first two introductory pages of this wizard,
you may un-tick the checkbox). Click Next.

Step 5: Now select whether you want the wizard to manage the
fields and tables or whether you want to do it yourself. In both cases
you will be allowed to check and edit the fields in the next page. In
this case I have chosen to do it myself. Then click Next.

Step 6: Now you can have a look at the table and decide how you
want to manage the fields and tables.

You can create a new table by dragging a field to the empty space in
the wizard. You can trasfer the fields between tables by dragging
the fields between the tables you want the field to be transferred.
After looking through the fields I found out that the table contains 3
different types of fields and thus we can create 3 different tables
from this table, an Order table, a Customer table and a CD table.

Since the Customer table does not contain any email address or a
unique customer identifier, I set the Card Number as primary key as
this is likely to stop duplicate records, since it is possible for
multiple orders to be taken from one credit card.
After managing the tables and fields, click Next.
Step 7: Now you may choose whether you want to create a query of
the original table. I selected No as this is not necessary right now.
Then click Finish.

Queries:
Note: The first part of the queries must be used on the analysis of
data and recommendations section
Search Queries:
Query 1a: Finding the order details and customer detail for the
Album Mayhem by Armageddon
I wanted to create a query where I can find all the order and
customer details for the album Mayhem. Below is a screenshot of the
query in design view. Here you can see the list of all the fields I
selected to be included in the query and you can also see the criteria
I used.

After selecting the fields, I gave the criteria =Mayhem in the

CD_Title fields criteria section; this criteria tells the program to
find show all the records of which contains Mayhem as its CD title.
After I ran the query, this was the result.

Only orders for the Mayhem album was shown with the details of
the customer who ordered it.
Query 1b: Finding the order details and customer detail for any
album
For the previous query, if I wanted to find the records of a different
CD title, I would have to open the query in design view and would
have had to change the criteria. This is a quite long and inefficient
process. So, I created a similar query but with different criteria.

For this query I used the criteria [Enter Album Name]. This criteria
will display a pop up message Enter Album Name and will require
an entry from the user. The program will then look through the
database and look for matches with whatever the user typed in the
text box in the CD title field. Then it will display the records which
had a match. The advantage of using this criteria is that the user will
be asked to enter the album name every time he/she tries to open
the query. As a result the user does not have to change the querys
design. Below is the result after I ran the query.

Query 2: Orders by Town

In this query I want to see the list of orders from a certain town. This
query is quite similar to the previous one, except here I used the
criteria in the Town field rather than the CD_Title field.

Most Orders Queries:

Query 1: Most Hit Artist
A business might want to know the albums of which artist gives
them the highest sales. This will help the business know which artist
is most popular and which artist is the least popular. As a result this
could also help to manage their stocks in accordance to this
information. In this query, I want to see only two fields, one is for
artist, and the other field is for the number of orders. So, I did the
following:

I selected the Artist field from CD Table and the Order Number
field from the Order table. I selected the Order number field just to
count the number of orders for each artist, as a result, I selected
Count in the total section for the Order number field. Since I want
the query to be grouped by Artist, I selected Grouped By in the
Total: section. I also sorted the Order number in descending order
so that the artist with the most CDs ordered appears at the top.
After running the query, this is the result below.

Query 2: Most Popular Albums grouped by artists

This is quite similar to Query 1 in this section, but here I also
included CD Title.

Query 3: County with Most Orders

In this query, I want to have a look at the counties which had the
most sales. Below is the design view of the query:

There are three fields that I have selected from the table, CD title,
Artist and Order Number. The Order Number field is used just like
before to count the number of orders. The other two fields are not
part of any particular table. I have created these two fields to store
the information about dates. In those fields, the text before the
colon is the name of the field and the texts after the colon is the
formula used to define the value that will be stored on this field. The
name of the 4th field is Year and I gave the formula Year([Order
Date]), so that this field stores the year of the order date. In the
same way for the 5th field, the name is Month and it will store the
month name. The formula I used here is MonthName(Month([Order
Date])). Here the formula Month([Order Date]) takes the
numerical value of month from the Order date field and the
MonthName() converts the numerical value to the name of the
month (e.g. a value of 1 will represent the month January and 12
will represent December). On the Criteria section, the [] are used
so that the programs asks for an entry for Year and month. Also, in
the Show section the checkbox is unchecked, which means this
fields will not be visible in the query. These field have been
unchecked because it would be meaningless to show the year and
month again since the user have already typed them in. Below is the
result of running the query.

Queries based on date:

Query 1: Finding Orders within a certain time period
To create a query, where user can find the orders placed within two
different dates, I did the following.

I gave the criteria Between [Starting Date] And [Ending Date] on

the Order Date field. As a result, the user will be asked to type in the
starting date and the end date. Below is the result after running this
query.

A textbox pops ups asking the user to enter the starting date. I
typed in, 01/02/2005 and clicked OK.

Then another textbox pops ups asking the user to enter the ending
date. I typed in, 03/02/2005 and clicked OK.

Th
en a query was displayed containing all the orders placed between
the starting date and the end date.

In the order date field I gave the criteria Date() so that it displays
the orders placed today. Since the records in the database are old, I
changed the current date on my PC to 01/02/2005, and then ran the
query. Below is the result.

Query 3:
Finding Orders by Month Name and Year
I wanted to create a query where it would be quite simple and quick
to find the total orders on a certain month. To create this query, I did
the following:

Here I created two extra fields that will store the information about
the year and month of a particular order. Then on those fields I gave
the criteria to [Enter Month] and [Enter Year] so that a textbox
is displayed asking the user to type in the month and year, with the
message typed in between the [ and ]. After I ran the query, this
was the result.

A textbox appeared asking for the

month, I typed in June and clicked OK.

Other Queries:
Query 1: Total Orders Each Month

The Year Field will show the year of order, the month number will
store the month in numeric form. This field is used for sorting. The
Month field will display the month name. The Order Number field is
used to count the total number of order per month. Below is the
result after running the query:

The program will ask the user to enter the year and month name due
to the [Enter Year] and [Enter Month Name] criteria, then the total
orders each day for that particular month of that particular year will
be displayed.

Report Examples:
Click to view the reports:

1.

Album (Lost Interrupt) Ordered per month

2.

Total Albums Ordered For Each Artist

3. Total Orders from each counties (in descending order of Total

orders)
4.

Total orders received each month (in chronological order)

5. Count of CDs ordered in December (in descending order of order

count)

Creating Charts:
In this section we are going to look at how to create and use a chart
using the database. For this section, I am going to create a Pivot
Chart for the Query: Orders each Month. This is the query I have
previously created which shows the list of the total orders each
month.
Microsoft Access 2013 does not have the pivot chart function unlike
its predecessors. As a result to create a chart in Microsoft access
2013, we must either create a chart by opening a blank report, or by
exporting the queries/tables to excel.

Creating charts with Access:

To do this, first the user must open a blank report.

Then the user must either click on the report, or clicking and
dragging the mouse on the empty parts of the blank report until the
user get the desired size. Then a chart wizard will pop up. There the
user have to select the query/table he/she wants to use for the chart
and click next.

Once the user click finished he/she will be displayed with an example
of the chart. Then once the user opens the report in report view or
layout view, he/she will be able to view the desired chart.

By Double Clicking on the Chart in design view the user can change
text size, color of the bars, orientation of texts, etc.

Creating charts using Excel:

To do this first the user must select the query he/she want to create
a chart with. Then the user must open the External data tab and in
the exporting options click the export to excel logo.

Once exporting is done, the user can open the excel file from the
desired location and can change the arrangements to the way he/she
likes and then the user can create a chart by going to the insert tab
and selecting Pivot Chart.

Usefulness of charts:
Charts can be of great help to a business. With the help of charts a
business may be able to easily identify trends certain trends in their
business. By identifying these trends they can find out which many
things, e.g. which one of their marketing scheme was most effective,
which marketing scheme was most effective in which place, which
artist gives them the most sales, at which time of the month they
have the most sales, etc.

Analysis And Recommendations:

In this section, I am going to analyze different parts of the database
to identify some trends and I am also going to give some
recommendations based on those trends.
Analyzing the Orders per Month for 2005:
Analysis:
Below is the graph that represents the orders per month of the
business for 2005.

From this chart we can see that the orders have significantly
increasing since January until it reached its peak at May. From then
on it started to decrease. Then there was a slight increase from
august and then again a steady decline.

From this information, for the rise in sales there can be one of the
following explanations:

1. The business started a good advertising campaign at the start

of the year which boosted up their sales.
2. The Business Sold Some very good albums and certain songs
were a great hit that lead to the rise in sales.

For the decline in sales, the explanations can be:

1. Their marketing campaign have weakened which could be a

result due to:
a.

Budget cuts which resulted in much lesser advertisements

b.

Change in marketing staffs

c.

Taking a different approach

2. Decrease in popularity, which could be due to providing bad

service to customers.
3. There were no extremely popular new albums released after
May.
4.

The business had a new competition

Recommendations:
Overall, we can see the main reasons business might have this
reduction their sales was mainly due to their decrease in popularity.
So to tackle these situations the business can do the following:

1. If advertisement was the factor, the business should go through

some advertisement campaigns to again boost their sales.
2. If certain events from May to June have caused the business to
receive negative popularity for example, not being able to provide
the customer their products on time, business should strengthen
themselves on those sectors and give advertisements providing
customer a guaranteed good service.
3. If the business failed to introduce some hit albums to their
stock, they should analyze the receptions of the public for some
albums and artists and then based on those, add more popular
album to their stock.
4. If the rise of a new competition was the result of the decline in
sales, the business should try their best in providing better services
than their competition and doing better marketing in order to get
back up in sales.

Detailed Analysis:
I went through the records and created a query to see each time a
new album was ordered in a certain month. From those query, I
extracted the information of a probable new album being released.

These results are based on every time a new album was ordered and
the month was recorded. So from these information we can see, that
at the first half of the year there were a lot of new albums
introduced. As a result the sales during the first half of the year was
exceedingly large compared to the last half of the year.

Best Recommendation:
From these information we can see that the best recommendation
for the business would be to introduce more new albums to their
stock and these might be the best way to increase their sales.

Analyzing Orders by Artists:

Analysis:
Previously we have created a query, where we can see the total
number of orders for each artists in descending order of order
numbers. Below are the records of that query.

From this query we can see that the orders for the albums of the
artist, Twisted Pear is far greater than any other artists.

Recommendations:
Since the orders for the albums of Twisted Pear is so high, business
should consider keeping more copies of their albums in case they
dont get sold out and as a result miss some customers. In the same
way the business should consider keeping less copies for the albums
of the artist Young Froid as they would rarely be ordered and thus
ordering too much of their album could become a loss for the

business. As a result, from these data the business will have an idea
on how much they copies of the albums they should keep on stock
for the other artists.
Analysis of Orders each County:
Below is the records of the query, Counties with highest Orders.

The difference in orders between the county with highest order and
the county with lowest orders is only 57 and the orders represent
the total orders for the whole year. As a result, I think this difference
is normal. However, if there was a large difference, i.e. more than

100, it would mean the business needs to spend more money on

advertisement on those areas.