Designing & Engineering Microsoft Access Databases
Introduction
Microsoft Access is a user-friendly
database platform, primarily for workgroups. Visual Case
supports most of the commonly used features of Access databases and
can be used to migrate Access databases that have out-grown themselves to Microsoft's SQL
Server platform (or others).
Using Visual
Case to Design Microsoft Access Databases
A database
can be built in Visual Case using the design tools or by reverse
engineering an existing database. If a design already exists
for a database of a different type it can be converted to SQL
Server.
For an
introduction to database design, visit our database design
tutorial.
Columns – These are built in
the table property page.
Data-types – Visual
Case supports all the standard data types.
Autonumber Fields –
These are
supported. In addition
Visual Case can automatically create and maintain a primary
index on autonumber columns.
Indexes – Indexes are
supported including primary, unique, ignore nulls and ascending or
descending.
Foreign Keys – These
are supported
with restrict, or cascade. Setting the child cardinality will synchronize the "allow
null" option on the foreign key columns and create a unique index if
the cardinality is "one
only".
Queries - Queries are supported in Visual Case as Stored Procedures and are
defined in the database property page. Undock the editor to edit a
long procedure.
SQL
Editor – This is an automatically activated editing tool and is aware of
the standard language features and names of dictionary
objects.
Engineering Microsoft Access Database
Visual Case's database engineering wizard will forward
and reverse engineers all database attributes that can be defined in
your Visual Case design of an Access database.
Although you have the option of engineering your
Access databases through an ODBC link, it is recommended that you
simply specify the direct path to your database so that the engineer
can use DAO.
The
wizard allows you to compare the differences between your database
design and the physical database before completing either the
forward or the reverse engineer.
The
forward engineer builds a transact-SQL script that can be saved and
manually run at a later time.
You
can quickly forward-engineer a single entity (table, stored
procedure, etc.) from its right-click menu or from its property
page.
For more information about forward and
reverse-engineering databases, please visit our
database engineering
tutorial.
Migrating Access
Databases
Visual Case will
convert any supported database type to Access and migrate between
Access versions. Visual Case will also reverse engineer most ODBC or
JDBC data sources to Access, even if the physical database is not a
type directly supported.
Because of
differences between database data types conversion is usually a
one-way process.
Free 30-Day
Download
Finally, download the 30 day free trial of
Visual Case and get started.
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registered trademark of Artiso Corp. Canada.
Microsoft,
Windows, SQL Server, VB, Visual Basic and Access are registered
trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
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trademark of Oracle Corporation.
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UML are trademarks of Object Management Group Inc. in the U.S. and
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