Sorting RADaRS Data in Access

By Tony Mitchell

· Before trying to sort in Access, be sure you have named your fields appropriately (right-click on the field and choose rename column)

· Launch Access from Start menu (this document is for Microsoft Access Version 2002)

· In the Task Pane on the right-hand side of the Access window, you should see the name of the RADaRS database you created when you pasted it into an Access document. Click on it

o If task pane is not showing, go to view menu, toolbars, and choose task pane

o Or you may choose to use the file menu, open command, and navigate to the document

· A simple sort can be done by simply highlighting a column and going to the Record menu and choosing sort

· A more detailed sort is done as explained in the next several bullets

o For my example sort, I am going to sort my students such that I see all the students that score between the 25 % and 50 % in Reading Total

· Once you have your database opened you should see in the left side of the window a panel with the words Object, Tables, Queries, Forms, etc; click on the Queries button

· In the next window, double click on the top choice: “Create query in design view”

· A “Show Table” window will open

· Click on Add and then click on Close

· You should now see another window open that has the names of your database fields, the ones you created as you renamed the field columns

· In my query window, double click first on the “Name” field name; it will now appear in the bottom panel

· Next double click on the “Reading Total” field name and see it move to the bottom panel in the next column

· Now, in the second column at the bottom of the window, the “Reading Total” column, find the “Criteria” row

· Right click in this cell and choose Build; an “Expression Builder” window should open

· To have Access sort my students such that I have a list on only those students who scored between 25% and 50%, do the following

1. Click on the greater then symbol >

2. Type 25

3. Click on the And symbol

4. Click on the less than symbol <

5. Type 50

6. Delete the extra stuff that came in «Expr»

7. Click OK

8. You will be thrown back to the query window

9. Go to the View menu and choose Datasheet View

10. If things went correctly, you should now see a list with only the student scores you wanted (between 25% and 50% in our example)

11. To save this list, exit and save the query, giving it an appropriate name

12. You will be able to open this query by opening this particular database and clicking on the Queries button and then finally on your particular query