Programming the Data Analysis Features in Microsoft Access

Because Access does not have the breadth of data analysis features that Excel has, Access has no programmatic capabilities to do things such as insert worksheet functions or format table cells conditionally. Fortunately, the Access DoCmd object (accessible from the Access Application object) makes running most Access tasks through a program very easy. The following subroutines, included in the Chap11 folder’s BookSale.mdb file, use three of the DoCmd object’s methods: the OpenTable method opens a table, the RunCommand method runs a built-in Access command to sort data records in descending order, and the ApplyFilter method filters data records in the data table. The results of running these subroutines are shown in Figure 11-14 and Figure 11-15.

Figure 11-14. Results of running the SortBookSales subroutine.