You might like to take a look at this article by Tushar Mehta:

http://tushar-mehta.com/excel/newsgr...cel/index.html

in which he explains how you might use Excel as a relational database
- not that you would necessarily need to have something so complex
from what you describe.

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Nov 13, 12:25*am, Monte Milanuk wrote:
Hello,

First, let me explain where I'm starting from...

I help out with a private non-profit club as a Board member and as
Secretary. *Our current membership list is done via a MS Works database
that was set up by persons unknown the better part of 10 years ago. *The
person doing the data entry portion and mailing out the newletters, etc.
is just barely computer-literate, i.e. surf, check email, maybe fill out
a template or form if it's not too complicated - maybe. *Lots of
hand-holding involved. *Along the way there have been some computer
crashes and just general data entry mistakes, so the existing 'database'
is in pretty sorry shape. *I got a copy, purchased a new copy of Works
9.0, exported the flat-file db as a .csv file and imported it into
Excel, and using Autofilter proceeded to find and fix the worst of the
data inconsistencies (mostly wrong or incomplete data in various
fields). *I re-imported the .csv file as a Works db, then cut and pasted
the 'sanitized' data back into the table of the original database file.
* I added a few basic *filters & reports to give us some things like
annual & current membership lists, new members in last 30 days, etc.

Now, for where I want to go from here...

For better or worse, I'm probably the computer 'guru' amongst the
available candidates, by a considerable margin. *Which means... if
anything is going to change for the better, it's going to have to be me
that does it. *I don't have the spare time to actually just assume the
whole membership/newsletter role, as I'm about 20-30 years younger than
most of the board, i.e. not retired yet ;) *So... either I have to keep
supporting this Works database, or find a better solution - that I can
deal with on my own terms. *I'm reasonably proficient with Excel, up to
the point of simple macros. *Actual VBA programming is something I'm
just starting to learn. *Given that this is a non-profit club, just
buying a pre-canned solution off the shelf isn't a viable option; I'd
still have to support it, and likely not be able to get at the guts of
it if I needed to. *And they tend to be priced for deep pockets ;) *We
aren't actually doing anything *that* complex with our membership list
at the moment - tracking who's paid up and who isn't, and generating a
mailing list for printing labels for the newsletter. *There's a number
of other things I'd like to do in addition or instead of the way we are
doing things now, but none of them seem to really require a full
relational database... but they start to get a bit involved in terms of
manipulating a flat list - I think, anyways. *In a perfect world I'd
prefer building something that could run on Excel if a person has it
installed, or OpenOffice if they don't i.e. somewhat platform agnostic.

So... would I be heading in the right direction to try to migrate this
scenario over to an Excel spreadsheet? *I can see having a master
membership list worksheet, along with other worksheets for easy viewing
of life members or other special categories, and a worksheet to function
as a data entry form for entering / viewing single records. *That's just
for starters.

Any suggestions or advice?

Thanks,

Monte