Microsoft Access 365-MS Access Mastery/Excel Import Secrets (Udemy.com)

This has been a tough one because it's all over the map in terms of presentation. The instructor is highly knowledgeable, no doubt about it. But rather than jump around in an existing Access Database, It would be easier to follow, take notes, and comprehend if, instead, the instructor took us through building a complex Access Database step-by-step. I would not expect every table, query, or form to get the step-by-step treatment as it gets repetitive, but the objects at the heart of the DB could be built from the ground up for clarity and then utilize everything else to teach more advanced Access capabilities.

Like the instructor mentioned, I've been using Excel as my customer/order database. But I've got so much data in it, the program is starting to bog down and crash. I haven't used Access since 2001 when I built my own databases, so I know it's capable of doing what I want it to do. I just don't know where to begin in the current MS Access software version since the options have changed drastically over the last 20 years. I looked into purchasing customer/order software, but none of them contain the set up/options I need for my specific business. Building my own program is the only way to go. This instructor seems to be a perfect fit for teaching the software.

This course was not what I expected it to be, but I don't regret taking it. I got my money's worth from it. There are, however, a few criticisms (hopefully constructive) that I would submit. 1) The course needs more of the "Why". For example, there was one bit early on where he explained how to prevent Access from creating a secondary index. The problem is I still have no idea what an index is or why I might or might not want a secondary one. I know how to prevent Access from automatically creating a secondary index, but I have no idea why I would want to. It's like being taught how to spell words I don't know the meanings of. I've learned something, sure, but the knowledge is useless to me. 2) So much of the later part of this course was watching him do layout design, resizing/moving/adding/deleting/renaming control boxes. I really don't need to see how to change the font size 67 times. This got so bad that I eventually started skipping lessons. I about skipped one entire section because the first video in that section was literally nothing but layout design, no new information at all. And so many of the videos toward the end were like that, ten minutes of watching him resize boxes and ten seconds of new information. I felt like my time was being wasted. I found this so tedious that I will not now be picking up his VBA course as I originally intended. My suggestion would be to have a comprehensive video or two near the beginning going into detail on layout design ... then use pre-designed layouts throughout the remainder of the course.

Although I was, in a previous life, a VBA and VB6 programmer, I thought could go right back to where I left off; breeze through this course and start building VBA apps without much effort. I learned that the things I used to know got lost and I needed this course to find them again. Plus, I learned that I won't be as proficient as when I last programmed in VBA. I'm actually re-learning and this course was vital in trying to pick up the pieces. I can't think of anything that was left out and I picked up so much more new knowledge without having to read an 800-page Access book. This course does it for anyone wanting to learn and use Access.

I like the conversational type of instruction. It feels like you're in the room with the instructor. The information and examples are clear, and the hand outs are VERY helpful. I had to come back and recommend this course again! I just completed automating a very tedious task using the skills I acquired in the course. I felt so accomplished when everything worked, and it was completely due to the clear instructions and excellent explanations which allowed me to customize what we learned in the course to my specific database.

It's not just about the material but how its presented! As a vintage application developer I appreciated Bruce's course structure and method of introducing features without getting bogged down with the multitude of menus and properties in Access. Building a set of practical forms queries and reports as you work through the course helps you build up an understanding of what Access can do and how some VBA can help. The set of reference notes will come in handy too.

Very helpful course, learned a great deal about Access objects (tables, forms, queries, reports) that filled in gaps in my knowledge from a different online course on Access that I'd taken previously. Very detailed and thorough course schedule. Furthermore, although this course isn't dedicated to Access VBA programming but rather just Access use itself, the course nonetheless does foray into Access VBA and provides very useful techniques to control buttons, text boxes, and combo boxes. I'm looking forward to trying out one of the instructor's Access VBA workshops to see if I can gain mastery of Access VBA.

All the lessons can be repeated. For example, if you feel you haven't quite understood a new concept, all you have to do is rerun the lecture; as well, you can pause and replay anytime, whereas, in real lecture time, you can't do this; you may have to wait until the end of the lecture to ask a question. Having a database composed of "real tables" based on what appears to be an existing company, makes for a more lifetime experience. I feel all the objects used in the database could easily be adapted into your own database.

This was a fantastic course. Bruce's teaching style is full of patience and encouragement. There is little doubt that he's done this many times before and uses that experience to help his student's avoid common pitfalls when using Access. Now that I've finished the course, I feel ready to start a database of my own. There will certainly be struggles, but the downloadable resources and course breakdown will make finding answers to the problems that come up doable. I look forward to taking more courses in the future!

This is a very well put together course. I've been working with enterprise level database systems (Oracle, SQL Server, and others) for 25+ years, but I have very little experience with Access, and I have a small application that I want to create. Even though I have a thorough understanding of databases, I knew a course like this would provide a quick way to get familiar specifically with Forms, Reports, and automation (VBA), and there would be many little tips and tricks that would be helpful to know up-front, rather than figuring them out on my own via experimentation. This course has proven to provide exactly what I was hoping for, giving me a quick but yet in-depth enough introduction to Access to allow me to build the application I need. I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn MS Access.