Learn Microsoft Access Advanced Programming Techniques, Tips and Tricks.

Alphabetized Customer List

Introduction.

If you are new to Microsoft Access Report designing, then this simple Alphabetized Customer List preparation Tutorial will give you enough insight into what it takes to design a simple report.

We will need the following few steps to complete our task:

  1. Prepare Customers' source data in a SELECT Query for the report.

  2. Open a new report in Design View.

  3. Insert the SELECT Query name into the Record Source Property of the Report.

  4. Use the Data Grouping and Sorting option of the Report to organize and display A, B, C, etc., in the Group Header.

  5. Design the Report.

  6. Preview the Report.

A Sample Report.

Sample alphabetized list of customers Report Preview is given below:


Designing A Report.

Get Some Sample Data.

But, first, we need some ready-made sample data for our Report

Let us start by importing Customers Table from the Northwind sample database.

  1. Click on External Data Menu.

  2. Click on the Access Tool button to display the Import control dialog box, to specify the Source and destination of data.

  3. Click on the Browse... Button to locate the Northwind sample database, Select the file and click Open.

    The selected file pathname is inserted into the File Name control in the dialog box.

    The first option is already selected as default, to import one or more required Access Objects from the selected Access database.

  4. Click OK to open the selected Access Database and expose its Tables, Queries, Reports, etc.

  5. Click on the Tables tab, select the Customers table, and click OK to import the selected table.

    The next step is to create a SELECT Query using the Customers table as Source.

  6. Click on the Create menu and select Query Design from the Other group.

  7. Click the Close button to close the Show Table dialog box, without selecting any object from the displayed list.

  8. You will find the SQL View option on the extreme left of the Toolbar and select it to display the Query's SQL editing window.

    You will find the SQL statement SELECT; in the window.

  9. Copy the SELECT Query Code given below and paste it into the SQL window, overwriting the existing SELECT; statement.

    SELECT Left([First Name],1) AS Alpha, [First Name] & " " & [Last Name] AS CName
    FROM Customers
    ORDER BY Left([First Name],1), [First Name] & " " & [Last Name];
    

    As you can see in the above SQL string we have only two columns of data. The first column has only one character in all rows, the leftmost character taken from the First Name of the customer. The first column name of the query is given as Alpha.

    We have used MS-Access built-in string function Left() for this purpose. There are other useful functions in this category, like Right(), Mid(), and others.

    The second column of data is the name of the Customer, with the First Name, and Last Name joined together, separated with a space. The second column's name is given as CName. When you use an expression to create the query column data it is better to give a simple name to the column so that it is easy to memorize and use on the Report or Form.  If you don’t give a suitable name, then MS-Access will give names like Expr1, and Expr2 (Expression 1, Expression 2, and so on) by default.

    In the ORDER BY clause of the query, both the columns are sorted in ascending (A-Z) Order, first on the Alpha column, and then on the CName column.

  10. Save the Query with the name Customer ListQ.

  11. Open the Customer ListQ in the datasheet view and check the data.

    A sample image of what we are going to create is given below for reference:

The Design Task.

Let us design the Report.

  1. Select Report Design from the Create menu.

    An empty Report is open in Design View, with its Property Sheet. The first priority is to define our Customer ListQ Query as the Record Source of our report. If the property sheet is not displayed then click on the Property Sheet toolbar button to display it.

  2. Select the Data Tab on the Property Sheet.

  3. Click on the Record Source property and click on the drop-down list at the right end of the property.

  4. Find Customer ListQ Query (use the slider, if necessary) and select it from the drop-down list, to insert it into the Record Source property.

  5. Click on Group & Sort Toolbar button from Group & Totals Group under Design Menu, if it is not already in the selected state, to display the Group and Sort controls under the Footer of the Report.

  6. Click on the Add a Group control displayed in the Group, Sort, and Total shown below the empty report.

  7. Click on the Alpha column name displayed from the Query columns list.

    You can see the Alpha Group Header is now appearing between the Page Header and Detail Sections of the empty report.

    We must sort the customer names appearing under a particular character group (say A, B, C group) so that they will appear in proper order as well. 

    Note: We have sorted the data in the Query by defining the ORDER BY clause, but we must define Grouping and Sorting on the Report also to make them appear in proper order on the Report as well.

  8. Click on Add a Sort control and select CName from the list.

    Now, let us create the Heading of the Report, Group Heading (A, B, C, and so on), and customer names list to appear under each group.

  9. Click on the Label control to select it and draw a rectangle, wide enough to write the heading text "CUSTOMER LIST", select Bold and Italic formatting styles, and change the font size to 16.

  10. Select the TextBox control and draw a text box on the Alpha Header Section of the report.

  11. Click on the Data Tab on the Property Sheet and select Alpha from the Control Source drop-down list. Change the font style to Bold and character size to 16.

  12. Select the child label of the text box and delete it.

  13. Create another text box in the Detail Section of the Report, below the Alpha Header control.

  14. Select the CName column name from the drop-down list in the Control Source property under the Data Tab on the property sheet of the text control.

  15. Reduce the Detail Section height by dragging the Page-Footer section bar up to touch the text box's edge.

  16. Save the report with the name: Customer List.

    Print Preview the Report.

  17. Open the Customer List report in print preview and see how it looks.

If the Heading, Group heading, and customer list are not properly aligned to the left in your report, as shown in the first image on the top, try to align all the controls to the left.

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