Access Switchboard Tutorial

When you open a database the Access program window opens and displays either the Database window or a switchboard. The Database Window displays the database objects. A Switchboard is a window that gives easy access to the most common actions a database user might need to take. The common actions that the user of your database will want to perform will be to: Open input Forms i.e. Customer/ Member forms or Transaction forms to add a holiday booking or hire a tool Open predefined Queries i.e. Lists of all Customers or selected Customers, sales made between selected dates etc. These sort of queries will be defined from the user requirements i.e. what the user wants from the database Open predefined Reports i.e. reports based on the predefined queries mentioned above Close the database

It is also possible to hide all the other Access features making the Switchboard the only object the users see when interacting with your database.

Creating a Switchboard
To create a Switchboard in your project, open your database then: 1. Click the Tools menu, point to Database Utilities, then click Switchboard Manager 2. Click Yes when you are asked to create a switchboard 3. Click Edit to edit the contents of the switchboards main page 4. Type a name for the main page 5. Click New to add an action button to the page 6. Enter the text for the button 7. Choose a command from the Command drop down menu 8. Choose a form, report, macro, switchboard function name from the Report dropdown list box 9. Click OK 10. Repeats steps 5 to 9 to add additional action buttons to the switchboard 11. Click Close 12. Click Close See diagram on following page

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Once you have created the switchboard you can edit it using the Switchboard Manager. In the future you may want to add other actions to the switchboard or delete previously
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created action buttons or actions. You can assign previously created action buttons to perform different actions. You can create other switchboards in your database to contain action buttons for different functional areas. For example, on the main switchboard you may have buttons that will open different functional areas i.e. Open Forms, Open Reports, Open/Run Queries/Macros. Each of these functional areas could be represented by a switchboard that has action buttons the will run actions that are specific that areas. Task: Decide what functional areas there will be in your database and produce a handwritten design for your main switchboard and all other switchboards that will be accessed from the main switchboard.

Opening the Main Switchboard Automatically

The main switchboard can be set to open immediately you open the database and as mentioned earlier, you can also remove all the other menu items that are usually displayed in the Design window. First you have to set the Main switchboard to be the default in the switchboard manager window see below

I have created a main switchboard in the Royalties database from the Payne-Gallway book you have been working though as an example see below

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Royalties Switchboard

As can be seen there has only been one action button added Show Authors. However, If we want to open another switchboard that will contain action buttons to open all Forms in the database we will first have to create another switchboard in Switchboard Manager and name it Open Data Input Forms see below

Then select (highlight) the Open Data Input Forms in the switchboard manager window and click Edit. The dialogue box shown below is displayed. Add the text Authors and the command Open Form in Edit Mode (if you want to add data to the form this option must be chosen)

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What we need to do next is to reassign the action button on the Main switchboard to open the Open Data Input Forms switchboard. Open the Switchboard Manager, highlight the Main Switchboard and click Edit. Highlight Show Authors and click Edit. Rename the Text as Open Forms Switchboard, the Command to Go to Switchboard and Switchboard to Open Data Input Forms (a number 2 is then displayed to denote that this switchboard is the 2nd switchboard form in the database) see below

Click Ok To run the switchboard click on Forms and Switchboard see below

The Main Switchboard is then displayed see below

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There is a problem though if we click on the Open Forms Switchboard, how do we get back to the main Switchboard?

Task:
Add another action button to the Open Forms Switchboard. You should end up with a switchboard similar to the one shown below.

Once you have done this, add other switchboards that will give access to other functional areas.

Finally we need to set the Main Switchboard to be displayed every time we open the database. To do this click Tools -> Start Up and set the dialogue box displayed as show below

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