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Introduction to Database Templates

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  • Lesson resourcesResources
  • Quick referenceReference
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About this lesson

Explore the templates available in Access and create a contacts database using the template.

Exercise files

Download this lesson’s related exercise files.

Introduction to Database Templates - Exercise
43.2 KB
Introduction to Database Templates - Solution
194.4 KB
Database41.accdb
868 KB

Quick reference

Introduction to Database Templates

Explore the template library in Access and learn how to use templates to build a database. 

When to use

We use a template whenever we want to take the hard work out of creating a database. Templates offer a starting point to build from and include pre-built tables, forms, queries, and formatting. 

Instructions

Accessing Templates

  • From the Start screen, click the Home page. 
  • In the New section, click More Templates.  

Templates are grouped by category. 

  • Under the search bar, click on any of the suggested search categories to browse the relevant templates. 

Alternatively, we can search for a template.

  • Click in the search bar. 
  • Type in a keyword e.g. 'call tracker' and press Enter or click the magnifying glass icon. 

To go back to the list of templates, click the Back button. 

Creating a Contacts List Database

  • Click in the search bar. 
  • Type in the keyword 'contacts' and press Enter. 
  • Select the first template from the list of results called 'Contacts'. 
  • Templates by default will be assigned a default file name. 
  • Click the Browse button and choose a folder to store this template in. 
  • Click Create. 

Once the template has been created, it will load into the main window. A navigation pane is displayed on the left-hand side and each element of the template is grouped by category. 

A security warning will show in a yellow bar across the top of the main window. This is a check to ensure that the template has been downloaded from a reputable source and doesn't contain any malicious code that may harm your PC. This template has been provided by the Microsoft Corporation, so it's from a trusted source. 

  • Click Enable Content. 

The Welcome Screen

The Welcome screen will pop up whenever we open a template. It provides information about the template, links to help files, and a short video about the template and how to use it. 

The Welcome screen can be customized for your users and even disabled. We will discuss this more later on. 

  • Close the Welcome screen. 
  • Click the File tab and select Close to close the contacts database. 

Hints & tips

  • To ensure that databases you use frequently are always easily accessible, pin the database. 
  • The keyboard shortcut to close a database is CTRL+W. 
Login to download
  • 00:00 In this first section of the course,
  • 00:03 we're going to open up Access, launch Access and have a look
  • 00:08 at some of the basic functionality that everybody needs to know.
  • 00:14 So if you've downloaded and installed Access onto your PC,
  • 00:17 the first thing we need to do is fire it up.
  • 00:19 So I'm using Windows 11.
  • 00:21 This process might be slightly different if you're using an old version of Windows,
  • 00:26 but I'm going to press the Windows key.
  • 00:28 Which is going to pop over my start menu.
  • 00:31 And in the search bar we're just going to do a quick search for Access.
  • 00:36 If you have it installed you should see at the top of the list there,
  • 00:39 remember you can right click.
  • 00:40 And you can pin to the start menu or
  • 00:42 pin to the taskbar to make it super easy to access.
  • 00:46 So let's open it up.
  • 00:48 Now we're using Access 2021, which is the latest version of Access.
  • 00:54 But even if you're using a slightly older version,
  • 00:56 this start screen is pretty much the same.
  • 00:59 And this is the terminology we use for
  • 01:01 the first screen you get to when you open up Access.
  • 01:04 It's called the Start screen.
  • 01:06 And this is where we can come to create a new database either
  • 01:10 from a blank database or using one of the inbuilt templates.
  • 01:14 And it's also where we can come to do things like, create new databases or
  • 01:18 open existing databases as well.
  • 01:21 We also have access to our account settings from here, and
  • 01:24 also Access options, which is a really, really important area,
  • 01:28 because this is where you can customize how your copy of Access works.
  • 01:33 And we're going to be dipping in and out of here as we go through the course.
  • 01:37 Now, for the time being, we're just going to focus on this main Start screen.
  • 01:41 In the new section at the top we can select a new blank database or
  • 01:45 we can choose a template.
  • 01:46 We have a more templates link at the end here which is going to open up the full
  • 01:51 templates library and we're going to load up a template in a couple of moments.
  • 01:56 Now if we click back on home just to go back to that main page, what you'll also
  • 02:01 notice underneath is that I have a recent list and also a pinned list.
  • 02:05 So recent is where you can find all of the databases that you've used recently.
  • 02:10 And the number of different files that you see in this list is very much determined
  • 02:14 by your settings in options.
  • 02:16 As you can see here I have mine set to show the last 50.
  • 02:19 Now if this is the first time that you are opening Access,
  • 02:22 then your list is going to be empty.
  • 02:24 I've been using Access for a while so mine is populated with different databases.
  • 02:29 And if you have any databases that you use all the time, and
  • 02:33 you want to make sure that they stay pinned to the top of the list,
  • 02:37 you can right click on any of the databases and select pin to list.
  • 02:42 And what that means is that then to access them, you can go to the pin section, and
  • 02:46 you'll see all of your pinned databases.
  • 02:48 So some really good efficiency tips, just that.
  • 02:51 Now let's shift our focus to looking at templates in Access.
  • 02:55 As we've already seen, we can click the more templates link.
  • 02:58 Alternatively, we can go to the new area and search for our templates down here.
  • 03:03 Now if you're not sure what a template is, it's basically a starting point for
  • 03:07 your database.
  • 03:08 So instead of just being faced with a rather intimidating blank database and
  • 03:12 having to build it from scratch.
  • 03:13 If you know the kind of database that you want to build it's worth having a look
  • 03:17 through the template library to see if there is a template there which is
  • 03:21 going to give you a really good starting point.
  • 03:24 Templates in general contain pre built tables, reports, forms, queries,
  • 03:29 and also things like formatting and all templates in Access are categorized based
  • 03:34 on the type of template that they are.
  • 03:36 And you can see underneath the search bar I have a few different categories that
  • 03:41 I could click on to to have a look at the templates within those categories.
  • 03:46 So let's go back and we're going to search for a template.
  • 03:49 So I'm going to search for the contacts template let's type it into the search
  • 03:54 bar, it pulls back a list of everything that matches my search criteria.
  • 03:59 So maybe I want to create a database just to hold a list of contacts.
  • 04:04 I'm going to select the template that I want to use it's going to open up in
  • 04:08 a brand new window and give me a little bit of information about that template.
  • 04:13 I also get to see who's providing the template.
  • 04:16 So I know if it's safe or not and I would hope that this template
  • 04:20 coming from Microsoft is not going to contain any nasty bugs or viruses.
  • 04:24 Now at this point before we load up this template we get the option to give our
  • 04:29 file a name.
  • 04:29 Now, I'm not going to name this at the moment.
  • 04:32 I'm going to leave it on the default name of database four.
  • 04:36 Notice here, the default file extension.
  • 04:38 When you're working with Access files of .accdb.
  • 04:43 What it is worth doing though is making sure that you're saving all of
  • 04:47 your databases into a very specific location.
  • 04:50 And you can see here by default Access has selected OneDrive Documents folder for me.
  • 04:55 If you want to change that just click on the folder icon and
  • 04:58 you can navigate to the folder where you want to store all your files.
  • 05:02 Once you're happy click on the big old Create button and
  • 05:05 it's going to load that template into the main access window.
  • 05:09 Notice here that I get a security warning running across the top.
  • 05:13 So it's always worth checking that and
  • 05:14 thinking about where you've actually downloaded this template from.
  • 05:18 Now, I know this is from Microsoft.
  • 05:20 So I'm going to enable content.
  • 05:22 And the first thing you'll notice with templates is that some of them
  • 05:25 are going to pop up with this welcome screen.
  • 05:28 And the welcome screen basically just gives you a little bit of information
  • 05:31 about what this template does.
  • 05:33 And you can see we even have a little video which is going to walk us through
  • 05:37 how to use this template.
  • 05:38 Now the cool thing with these welcome screens is that when you get a bit further
  • 05:42 into Access, you can completely customize these for your users.
  • 05:46 So you can add your branding,
  • 05:48 you can add your own text depending on how you want them to look.
  • 05:51 Now it might be at this stage that you just find this welcome screen
  • 05:54 quite annoying.
  • 05:56 So you can disable it by simply unchecking the box at the bottom just here.
  • 06:00 Now I'm not going to do that at the moment because I want to talk more about this in
  • 06:04 a couple of lessons time.
  • 06:06 So I'm just going to close down the welcome screen.
  • 06:09 Now before we go any further, notice that the contact list is open in its own tab.
  • 06:14 And whenever you open anything within a database,
  • 06:16 it's going to open in a separate tab.
  • 06:19 Now I'm very quickly just going to close down this database by clicking on File and
  • 06:24 then Close.
  • 06:25 Now if I now go back to File take a look at my recent list.
  • 06:30 That database that we've just been working on database four remember
  • 06:35 we didn't rename it is now at the top of the list

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Introduction to Access 2021
05m:16s
Creating, Saving, Opening and Closing Databases
05m:38s
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