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Access Assignment 4: Creating a Custom Report

Overview:

The assignment teaches how to create well designed custom reports from scratch without using a report wizard. This will remove any magic from the process of using report wizards and will strengthen your understanding of how to arrange data for printing.

Resources

If necessary, begin by reviewing the exercises in Tutorial 4  that provide an introduction to reports.  Then, work through the exercises in Tutorial 7 that teach how to build custom reports.

Individual Assignment

  • This is an individual assignment (not a team assignment). Please ensure that you address all of the system requirements described in the review assignment and instructions provided below. If you would like to be creative and enhance your assignment beyond the listed requirements, you may do so. However, make sure that you satisfy the requirements of the assignment, since your work will be evaluated based on those requirements.
  • Note: The code for academic honesty applies. All students are expected to work through this assignment personally with their own set of fingers. Copying all or a portion of a file from a classmate and submitting it as your own work will be treated as a violation of OSU's code of academic honesty.

Instructions

Complete Case 4: Mountain River Adventures on pages AC 363 to AC 364, steps 2 through 7,  of the Access 2003 text. In addition, follow the Supplemental Instructions provided below.

To complete the assignment, you will need the Outdoors database. To save this file on your computer directly from this webpage, right-click on Outdoors.mdb and select Save target as. 

I will harvest the Outdoors.mdb database for this assignment from your course assignment folder (p:\classwork\BA271\assignment).  If you complete the assignment from home, then make sure you move a copy of Outdoors.mdb to your \classwork\BA271\assignment folder by the due date and time.

Check that your Outdoors.mbd database is in the correct location for grading by going to the Access Assignment #4 Student Page listing.

Tutorial 7 Case 4, Steps 2 thru 7, pages AC 363 to AC 364

Do not complete this assignment inside the Trips.mdb database. Instead, go back and read the instructions about using the Outdoors.mdb database.

  • In step 2: Select all fields from the RaftingTrip table as the textbook suggests. Your Booking table is unlikely to contain a River field as the instructions suggest; instead, it will have a TripID field. Thus, you should select all fields from the Booking table except the TripID field.
  • In step 7 e: I found I needed to use the following formula: =DSum("[TripFee]","[BookedRaftingTrips]"). Be careful how you use this formula. For example, if your Booked Rafting Trips query has a "Trip Fee" or "Expr1" field rather than a "TripFee" field, then you should modify this formula so it uses "Trip Fee" or "Expr1" instead.
  •  Skip step 7 f.
  • Then adjust your report so it looks like the image shown below:


     

Final Step: Test that you have turned in the assignment correctly

Make sure your work is in the proper location for grading. To do this, click on your name in this Access listing.

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