Wine Database Application

[JohnZ1156]

My wife and I like to go to local Wineries to purchase our wine.
That way we can taste various wines before deciding which to purchase.
Afterwards, we’ll buy 4 bottles of this wine, 5 bottles of that wine, etc.
Sometimes we come home with multiple cases of wine.
I was wondering if anyone has created a simple wine database.

Here are the fields that I currently use in my worksheet.
Winery (Winery or Vineyard Name)
Wine Name (depends on Winery selected)
Color (Red, White, Blush)
Size (750ML, 1.5L)
Purchased (Date)
Quantity (Numeric)

I'd like to have an easy GUI like a form where I can Enter, Delete, Edit and Print records in the table,
plus the ability to add Wineries, and/or wine names within a winery dropdown list.

I just don't know where to start.
I've searched around and only found very detailed and convoluted wine inventories that have much more information than I'm looking for.
This is WAY beyond my capabilities.
Any takers?

 

[alansidman]

If I were doing this, I would use MS Access instead of Excel. Here is one link to a template, but there are many more when i google "MS Access Wine DB"

Wine Collection Database Template | MS Access Templates

This Wine Collection Database Template makes sure will put-off a lot of head-aches. And it makes managing your wine-cellar fun and easy.

access.microsofttemplates.org

Here is one from Excel

To-do list templates | Microsoft Create

Find customizable list design templates. From shopping lists and reading lists to wish lists and bucket lists, there's a list template perfect for you to customize for your project.

templates.office.com

 

[Joe4]

If I were doing this, I would use MS Access instead of Excel. Here is one link to a template, but there are many more when i google "MS Access Wine DB"

Wine Collection Database Template | MS Access Templates

This Wine Collection Database Template makes sure will put-off a lot of head-aches. And it makes managing your wine-cellar fun and easy.

access.microsofttemplates.org

Here is one from Excel

To-do list templates | Microsoft Create

Find customizable list design templates. From shopping lists and reading lists to wish lists and bucket lists, there's a list template perfect for you to customize for your project.

templates.office.com

I am with Alan 100% on this one. The clue is right in your question, asking for a "database". Access is a database program, Excel is not.
So Access is going to handle this much better and much more gracefully than Excel ever could.

And its nice that you can find many pre-defined Access templates already.
Of course, the big question is whether you have Microsoft Access or not...

 

[JohnZ1156]

I am with Alan 100% on this one. The clue is right in your question, asking for a "database". Access is a database program, Excel is not.
So Access is going to handle this much better and much more gracefully than Excel ever could.

And its nice that you can find many pre-defined Access templates already.
Of course, the big question is whether you have Microsoft Access or not...

Thank you for your response.
The reason I did not consider using MS Access is because I'm currently running MS Office 2010 and I'm planning to upgrade to probably MS Office 2021.
MS Access is not included with that upgrade. It's almost like Microsoft is beginning to "phase out" MS Access.
I was hoping to stick with Excel.
Thanks again.

 

[Joe4]

Thank you for your response.
The reason I did not consider using MS Access is because I'm currently running MS Office 2010 and I'm planning to upgrade to probably MS Office 2021.
MS Access is not included with that upgrade. It's almost like Microsoft is beginning to "phase out" MS Access.
I was hoping to stick with Excel.
Thanks again.

That is not correct. Access is not being phased out. And it is included in Office 2021.
Note that it is often not included with the "Home" versions of Office, but is always included in the "Professional" versions.

See: Is Microsoft Access going away, dying, or going end of life, and is it still relevant in the world of remote working and cloud computing? - Your Office Anywhere

 

[JohnZ1156]

If I were doing this, I would use MS Access instead of Excel. Here is one link to a template, but there are many more when i google "MS Access Wine DB"

Wine Collection Database Template | MS Access Templates

This Wine Collection Database Template makes sure will put-off a lot of head-aches. And it makes managing your wine-cellar fun and easy.

access.microsofttemplates.org

Here is one from Excel

To-do list templates | Microsoft Create

Find customizable list design templates. From shopping lists and reading lists to wish lists and bucket lists, there's a list template perfect for you to customize for your project.

templates.office.com

Thanks Alan,
I already have the data in an Excel Worksheet.
I was looking for an automated VBA Application to make data entry and modifications easier.
However, I do appreciate your advice.
John.

 

[Joe4]

Thanks Alan,
I already have the data in an Excel Worksheet.
I was looking for an automated VBA Application to make data entry and modifications easier.
However, I do appreciate your advice.
John.

Note that this is coming from someone who knows and uses both Excel and Access and VBA with both, and really does not have any "biases" of one program over the other (I like them both equally).
The fact that the data is already in Excel shouldn't be an obstacles. Importing or linking the data into Access is easy.

All things equal, this would perform much better in Access than in Excel, as Access is a relational database program, and Excel is not. People often "force" Excel to try to behave as a relational database, and it can be done, but it is usually very cumbersome, inefficient, and not as dynamic in nature.

And if creating forms in Access is SO much easier than in Excel. In Excel, you need to first create the forms, and then you need to write VBA to control the form behavior, and map all the date entered on the forms into Excel. And trying to control the format of the data being entered into the forms can be a bear. In Access, you can create Forms using your Tables and Queries as the data source, and just drag and drop the fields on to the form and not have to do any mapping with VBA code! And all the data type will be controlled by the underlying fields. So qutie often, you do not need any VBA code (or very little) in your Form creation. And it was very easy to create new queries on-the-fly.

Usually the hardest part about creating an Access database is the designing on the tables. You want to be sure to follow the Rules of Data Normalization (there are tons of links out there on it). If you follow those rules, it makes it pretty easy to do almost anything you want with the data. If you don't, it can make seemingly simple tasks difficult (I learned that the hard way myself). However, if you find a pre-defined template that is pretty much what you want, you probably don't need to worry much about it - as that part will have already been done for you.

And once complete, it is very easy to use (everything is pretty much form-driven). I created a number of Access databases for a group of people who had no secondary education and they loved it. Most of them didn't even have any idea that they were actually using Access!

Of course, I realize that you may not have the same freedom to use any program you want. But if you do have the ability to use Access, you may want to consider it, as I think it will be a much better experience, once you get used to it.

 

[alansidman]

Of course, I realize that you may not have the same freedom to use any program you want. But if you do have the ability to use Access, you may want to consider it, as I think it will be a much better experience, once you get used to it.

I concur with this statement