Office Professional 2007 Customizing the Issues Te

Last time, we looked at the Issues tracking application that will ship with Access 12 and provide a simple place for users to get started with Access. This time, we'll look at some of the new tools available to modify that application. Each of these toolsets is a full post (or more) in its own right, so I'll just skim the surface, but will be able to show how much easier it is to modify Access databases than it has been before.
Modifying Dropdown Contents
The simplest thing one might do in modifying the Issues app is changing the data itself. In the last post, we saw that users can drill through the Assigned To field to the underlying Contacts form to enter a list of users. That works great where there is another table and a form for the data, but doesn't support standard dropdown "pick lists". In addition to that functionality, Access 12 users can easily edit the contents of the other pick lists as well.
Here the user has opened the dropdown for "Priority" and you'll see below and to the left of the list a little orange widget. Clicking that widget opens the dialog below, which allows the user to edit the contents of the dropdown without having to go to the property sheet in design view.
Modifying Column Widths
The next thing the user may want to do is adjust the width of the columns in the main forms. This can be easily done from the form view (no need to go to design mode). The user simply clicks between the column headers as you see in the image below, and drags to resize. Because the controls are aware of one another, Access automatically moves all of the other columns over to make or fill up blank space.
Layout View
Access 12 has added a completely new design view called "Layout View". This is a "WYSIWYG" design view, where the user's changes are visible in real time and in a form or report that looks just like the final product. Access still has its traditional "banded" report writer and existing forms package, but the Layout View is much easier to use in common cases. I'll show a few of the ways Layout View is used below, and we'll have a more complete post on it in the future.
In the image above, the user is hovering over the control to move into layout view. Clicking it doesn't significantly change the form's presentation, but does change the behavior. For example, clicking in a column (as in the image below) selects the column, and the user can now drag it back and forth to reorder the columns in the form.
Clicking in the title for the issues list allows the user to edit the strings and provide a new title for the form, and so on. This was all possible in the old design view,Windows 7 Pro, but is simpler with Layout View.
When we look at modifying a report below, we'll see more of how layout view works.
Quick Format
Also in Layout View, there are a number of "Quick Formats" that can be applied. We're still extending this list, but expect to have a number of good looking and contemporary formats for forms and reports that can be easily applied, and just as easily modified.
The Quick Format control is a "##############" on the ribbon, that can scroll or expand with the buttons on the right-hand side. As an early example of what it will do, clicking the right-most format will change a report that looks like this:
Into a report that looks like this:
Extending the Schema
The changes above are all pretty simple and while they change the look of the application, don't change its form. It is also quite easy, though to change the structure of the Issues app as well. Imagine that the user decides to not only track that an issue was resolved, but need to track how it was resolved. There's no field in the database for "resolution",Windows 7 64 Bit, so she'd need to add one yourself. First she opens the Issues table, and scrolls to the far-right column.
There she sees a column for "Add New Field" and she can simply insert what she needs there.
Much like Excel, she simply clicks in the header and gives the column a name. As described earlier, Access automatically guesses the data type,Office Professional 2007, and provides UI to modify this if we get it wrong. Of course experienced users can still set up the column just as they did before, and in fact can use the existing table designer UI if they wish.
Add Existing Column to Forms & Reports
Now the column has been added to the table, but it doesn't yet appear in any of the forms and reports at this point. The user simply has to open whichever form should contain the new field, enter Layout View, and click on "Add Existing Fields" from the ribbon.
This will bring up the "Add Existing" taskpane, and the user simply drags & drops the field into her form wherever she wishes. In the view below, she's adding the field to the Issue List form (click the image for a wider-angle view).
(Click image to enlarge)
Next, she'll add the same field to the "Issues by Assigned To" report,Office 2010 Product Key, using the same taskpane, and a similar UI for the report.
(Click image to enlarge)
If you look at the detailed view above, you'll see that the report is somewhat sophisticated, with grouping, totals,Office 2007 Professional, and so on. The new Layout View described above allows you to edit the report while looking at it with data, and laid out as it will print. To show how big a change this is for Access, here's the same report in the legacy design view.
(Click image to enlarge)
As you can see, it is much easier to picture the report in the new view, and easier to do most common tasks. The traditional design view is very powerful and still a part of the product, but we believe new users will be successful for the first time with the layout view, and existing users will find many tasks quicker using it as well.
Next Time
Next time, we'll look at starting a database from scratch and delve a little deeper into some of the tools described above.
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