I know this is an old post, however I feel access has been a bit
misrepresented!
Access wuold be able to achieve everything set out here and can be really
easy to use if set up correctly, with forms displaying data however you want.
and quereying the data can be made to be very straightforward.
It's a different way of thinking to set up than excel. but once you've made
the change, you'll never go back!

A database is really what is required here not a spreadsheet...
--
steve adlam


"Jo4321" wrote:

I kind of crossposted over on the Access forums, but I need some opinions.

I'm in a new job with a college sports team and there is an existing roster
of team members on Excel. It contains all the usual info name, address,
ssn, position played, hght., weight.. etc. There are other spreadsheets with
team member with other info, such as home of record, parents names, summer
address, etc. There are other spreadsheets with
possible recruits with similar information. The coaches are familiar with
the excel format.

I'd like all the info to be in one place. But it seems that if I put it all
into one spreadsheet, it is going to have a heck of a lot of fields and would
be unweldy to view. Plus the possible recruits would be mixed in with the
current team members (even though I'd have a field that could be checked
"team or recruit".

Is there a way to connect the various separate excel spreadsheets somehow so
that they'd work together?
Or is the only way to have these connections by
using a database program such as access?

I use the spreadsheets to generate correspondence, roster lists for the
coaches, labels, nametags, etc. I also use it for reports (names of recruits
who visited etc),The coaches will often use the info by using "save as" and
then deleting the stuff they don't need and adding stuff they do. ( One
example, the "lifting coach" will copy the names and heights and weights and
then add his own columns for their workouts.)

If I switch this stuff over to access, will what I gain in flexiblity be
lost in the coaches ability to manipulate the data themselves? (I could do
the same thing that the lifting coach does by using a directory merge with
word, but the coaches aren't as familiar with mail merge as I am.) There are
many other examples of times when the coaches would need to grab this data,
so I'm wondering if I ought to just leave it all in excel.

So what are the pros/cons access/excel in my situation?

TIA,
Jo