- Why This Chapter Is Important
- Introduction to Relational Database Design
- Establishing Relationships in Access
- Establishing Referential Integrity
- Looking at the Benefits of Relationships
- Examining Indexes and Relationships
- Practical Examples: Establishing the Relationships Between the Tables Included in the Time and Billing Database
- Summary
Relationships enable you to normalize your database. Using relationships, you can divide your data into separate tables, once again combining the data at runtime. This chapter began by explaining relational database design principles. It described the types of relationships that you can define. It then covered the details of establishing and modifying relationships between tables and described all the important aspects of establishing relationships.
The capability to easily establish and maintain referential integrity between tables is an important strength of Microsoft Access. This chapter described the referential integrity options and highlighted when each option is appropriate. Finally, this chapter summarized the benefits of relationships.