Can several people input data into a single Access database at any one time?

Yes they can.

Note that Access will generally lock the record that is being edited, so that any data integrity issues are taken care of.

I'd be grateful if you could explain this further - are you saying that more than one person could open the database and input data from different computers at the same time?

If so, are there any disadvantages of doing this? I.e. would it be better for people to be working on different databases and then amalgamating these later? If it would be better to do this, how would it be possible to ensure all the autonumber IDs were consecutive numbers?

Could you also explain what you mean by Access 'locking the record' to 'take care of data integrity issues'?

Hi Sarah,

My recommendation on the above would be to let maultiple users use the same database file, as Access is designed to be used by multiple users.

When a user is editing a record, the record is locked, meaning that no-one else can edit that record until the original user has completed editing it. This ensures that data changes are structured, and errors are kept to a minimum.

Does that answer your question?

Regards

Richard

Thank you Richard, and sorry to be a pain but it sounds now as though it isn't possible for multiple users to input data *at the same time* if each user has to wait until the original user has finished. Grateful if you could clarify.

Sarah,
Good to clarify all aspects you are unsure of.

This subject gets fairly techical, but I will try to keep it simple.

As a Basic rule, you can have multiple users ADDING new records of data at the same time. However, when it comes to EDITING, you don't really want to have multiple users making changes to the same record, and then not knowing which users changes were accepted and which ones were not.

To combat this Access has something called RecordLocks Property, which can be found on the DATA tab of a forms properties.

Access HELP describes the functionality pretty well, so the"RecordLocks Property" into the help, and read through the options. Depending on which option you choose, the database will respond accordingly.

I suggest that you consider "Edited Record" RecordLocks.

Happy to hear your thoughts on this.

Regards

Richard

Hi Sarah,

I found a good description article for you at:

http://member.advisor.com/doc/13043

It give a non-technical perspective on how it all works.

Regards

Richard