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Calendar Seminar Lessons Welcome to Access Calendar. Total running time is 1 Hour 56 Minutes. Lessons
Resources
Important AddendumsEVERYONE make sure to see these addendums. These addendums address some problems with the original seminar, including the missing date picker control: Optional AddendumsIf you want to put your calendar form in a subform, see Addendum 3 (plus I added some cool new features - moved a lot of stuff to VBA code instead of form default values). Alex's AddendumsAlex put some stuff together for you guys too... Questions?Please feel free to post your questions or comments below. If you have questions about a specific lesson, please specify the lesson number and the time index in the lesson where the issue occurs. Thank you! Subscribe for UpdatesIf you would like to be notified whenever changes are made to this page, new lessons are posted, or comments are made, click on the subscribe button.
IntroIn this seminar, we will build a fully functional calendar system in Microsoft Access from start to finish. You will learn how to create a table to store appointments, design a calendar form that displays appointments in a monthly grid, and set up forms for adding or editing appointments. We will cover the necessary VBA code to format the calendar, manage dates correctly, use triple state checkboxes to filter items, and automate repetitive tasks. You will also see how to create a printable monthly calendar report and work with the built-in calendar control to enhance your project.TranscriptWelcome to the Building a Calendar Seminar brought to you by AccessLearningZone.com. I am your instructor, Richard Rost.This seminar has two goals. First, we want to build a calendar form, and second, build a printable calendar report. Obviously, we will start with a simple table to store all of our appointments. Then we will build a form using Microsoft Access that will actually look like a calendar on the screen. We will design the form so that you can click on any of your appointments on the screen and open up a little appointment form to edit or add new ones. Of course, we will cover all the VBA code necessary to do things such as properly color the calendar form boxes and arrange them so that the proper dates show up on the calendar. The first Sunday, for example, on the calendar might not be the first of the month, so we will see how to deal with that problem. Once we have the form completely built, we will build a printable monthly calendar report. I am going to show you all the techniques necessary to format this as a monthly calendar. However, you could print a weekly or biweekly calendar if you want to. What should you know before taking this course? I would consider this to be an advanced double seminar. In other words, you should definitely know all the material covered in my Access 100-level series. The basics of building databases such as tables, forms, and reports without any programming are definitely required. My Access 200 series is strongly recommended. You are not going to have to know relational database concepts or action queries, and some of that stuff. However, basic build events will be very helpful if you understand how those build events work with running macros, even if you have not done any VBA programming. That is a plus. And, of course, my Access 300-level series, where I start getting into VBA programming, is very helpful. I will cover everything you need to know in today's class. I am only going to assume you know the basics of Microsoft Access. I am not going to take the time to build simple tables and queries and stuff like that. I am going to assume you know that. But the programming part of it, the creating events and such, I will go slow and show you exactly what I am doing there. So if you have never done any programming in VBA, that is ok. You should still be able to follow the seminar. But if you are thinking about learning VBA first, you might want to take my Access 300, at least the first couple of classes, 301, 302, and 303 especially. I will be using Access 2007 for my examples. However, everything that I am going to show you is valid going all the way back to Access 2000. In fact, there are a couple of minor differences in 2003 and earlier, and I will point them out and show you an example in 2003 in the seminar. So as long as you have Access 2000 or later, you should be just fine with the seminar. Now, let us take a little more in-depth look at exactly what we will be covering today. In lesson one, we are going to set up our database. We will create the database file, the table to store our calendar data, and a calendar form to view each item. In lesson two, we are going to make an appointment list form where we can show a list of all of our appointments on the calendar. We will make an option to show closed items or not. We can close old items and they will not show up on our calendar anymore. In this lesson, I am going to show you how to use a triple state checkbox to show the closed items, the open items, or all items in your appointment list. In lesson four, we are going to start working on a monthly calendar form. This form is going to look like an actual monthly calendar. We will start by making a query that has our date with the time, and we are going to isolate the time of the appointment. We are going to start making a date picker form so we can pick a date, and then hit a button that says open the calendar. Then we will start making that monthly form to display our calendar. In lesson five, we will take the calendar we have been building so far and extrapolate on it so we can make list boxes for each of the days of the month. In lesson six, we are going to use the calendar control, an ActiveX control that comes with Access, to make picking a start date easier. Then we are going to write some code to find the first Sunday on or before the first day of the month so we know where to start our calendar form. In lesson seven, we are going to gray out the days from different months in our calendar form. For example, if the month starts on a Tuesday, that Sunday and Monday beforehand are from the previous month, so we will gray them out so they look different. We will do the same thing at the end of the month too. I am going to show you how to loop through the fields on the form with VBA code so we do not have to copy and paste the same lines of code multiple times. In lesson eight, we are going to clean up the format of our calendar form a little bit, and we are going to make a double-click event for each of our boxes that is going to open up the specific appointment that we double-click on. More importantly, I am going to show you how to use Excel to automate that code a little bit. In lesson nine, we are going to start working on the printable monthly calendar report. In lesson ten, we are going to finish up our printed calendar report, our monthly calendar report. We are going to make some VBA code corrections that you have to do for reports. The code is going to work slightly differently for the report than it did for the form, and we are going to see how detailed build events work. I strongly recommend you sit back and relax and watch each lesson through one time. Do not try to do anything with me. Just watch it once. Then, watch the lesson a second time, and follow along with the examples. Build the database exactly as I build it in class, and you should understand how it works. Do not try to integrate this into your database right now. Wait until you understand the whole thing first, then go ahead and build it. Obviously, the calendar database that I am going to be building in class is not a complete database on its own. You are probably going to want to incorporate this into your customer database, your sales database, or an appointment database that you already have. However, I strongly recommend you build this as a standalone database first, then maybe incorporate it into your database after you understand all the concepts. I will post a copy of the database that I build in today's class at this location: accesslearningzone.com/calendarseminar (one word). You will get the most out of this database if you build it yourself following along with the examples in class. Do not just copy the database down from the website and use that to follow along with. Build it yourself and you will learn it better. If you get stuck, post a question in the student forums. If you are watching this course online in my video player or in the online theater, you will see the student forum pop up next to the video window. If you are watching offline, just go to my website and you will see the link to the forums right there. QuizQ1. What are the two main goals of the Building a Calendar Seminar?A. Create a table and learn queries B. Build a calendar form and a printable calendar report C. Focus on VBA programming only D. Learn database relationships and action queries Q2. What database application is used throughout the seminar? A. Microsoft Excel B. Microsoft Word C. Microsoft Access D. Google Sheets Q3. What does the seminar assume about your prior knowledge? A. You only need to know how to use VBA B. You should know basic database skills such as tables, forms, and reports C. No knowledge of Access is necessary D. You must be an expert in relational databases Q4. Which Access series is strongly recommended before taking this seminar? A. Access 400-level series B. Access 100-level series only C. Access 200-level series D. Access 100 and 200-level series Q5. What type of form will you build to interact with appointment data? A. A spreadsheet form B. A list form only C. A calendar form that resembles a real calendar D. A form with only textboxes Q6. How does the seminar handle appointments from previous and next months in the calendar form? A. They are hidden from view B. They are displayed in bold C. They are grayed out to look different D. They are deleted automatically Q7. What feature lets you show closed, open, or all items in your appointment list? A. Dual-state checkbox B. Triple-state checkbox C. Button options only D. Dropdown menu only Q8. What control is used to make picking a start date easier in lesson six? A. Combo box control B. Calendar control (ActiveX) C. Text box D. Slider control Q9. What is one VBA topic you will learn regarding the calendar form? A. Looping through all the fields to automate code B. How to use Access macros only C. How to write SQL queries exclusively D. Unique table relationships Q10. What does Richard recommend before integrating the seminar calendar into your own database? A. Immediately add it to your customer database B. Incorporate it halfway through the seminar C. Build and understand it as a standalone database first D. Use the finished database file only Q11. What should you do if you get stuck or have questions during the seminar? A. Email the instructor directly B. Post a question in the student forums C. Wait until the end of the seminar for questions D. Contact Microsoft support Q12. Why does Richard suggest you build the calendar database yourself during the seminar? A. Because downloading files is discouraged B. To ensure software compatibility C. You will learn better by doing it yourself D. It is required to pass the class Answers: 1-B; 2-C; 3-B; 4-D; 5-C; 6-C; 7-B; 8-B; 9-A; 10-C; 11-B; 12-C DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks. SummaryToday's video from the Access Learning Zone is our Building a Calendar Seminar. I'm Richard Rost, and in this seminar, we'll be focusing on two main objectives. First, our goal is to design a calendar form in Microsoft Access that you can use to view and manage your appointments. Second, we'll create a printable calendar report so you can have a hard copy of your schedule.We'll start by creating a simple table to store all of your appointments. After that, we'll build a calendar form in Access that displays your appointments in a layout similar to a standard monthly calendar. You'll be able to select any appointment and bring up a separate form to edit the details or add new entries. Throughout the seminar, I'll walk you through all the necessary VBA code to color code the calendar boxes correctly and organize the dates so that each one appears in its appropriate slot. This includes handling cases where the first Sunday on the calendar isn't actually the first of the month. We'll address these kinds of practical details together. After the form is complete, we'll move on to building a printable monthly calendar report. I'll show you the essential techniques to format your report as a monthly calendar, but you can adapt what you learn here to create weekly or biweekly versions if needed. Now, before starting this course, you should have a solid understanding of the material in my Access 100-level series. You should already know how to create basic tables, forms, and reports without programming. I strongly recommend covering the Access 200 series as well, since it provides helpful background, though you don't need in-depth knowledge of relational databases or action queries for this seminar. Some familiarity with build events and running macros will be helpful, even if your experience with VBA is limited. My Access 300-level series is also a great resource, especially if you're new to VBA programming. While I'm using Access 2007 for the examples, everything I demonstrate will work with Access versions going back to Access 2000. I'll also point out any minor differences in Access 2003 and earlier, and show you relevant examples. Let's take a closer look at what the seminar will cover: In the first lesson, we'll set up the core database, create the table to hold your appointment data, and design a form that lets you view each calendar item. For lesson two, we'll make an appointment list form, which displays all your appointments. Here, you'll see how to choose whether to display closed items, open items, or every appointment using a triple state checkbox. This allows closed items to be hidden from the calendar view once they've been addressed. Moving to lesson four, we'll begin work on the monthly calendar form itself. We'll start by creating a query that gathers appointment dates and times, and then isolate the time information. I'll demonstrate how to make a date picker form so you can select a specific date to display on the calendar. Then we'll build out the monthly form to present your calendar visually. In lesson five, we'll expand on the calendar form by adding list boxes to show the appointments for each individual day in the month. During lesson six, we'll use Access's Calendar Control, an ActiveX tool, to simplify choosing a start date for your calendar. Then, we'll write code to identify the first Sunday on or before the start of the chosen month, ensuring your calendar begins on the correct day. For lesson seven, we'll see how to distinguish days belonging to other months by graying them out on the calendar form. The days from the previous or following month, which sometimes appear at the beginning or end of the calendar, will be formatted so they stand out as not part of the main month. I'll cover how to automate this using VBA and show you how to loop through the calendar fields so you don't have to repeat the same code in multiple places. Lesson eight focuses on enhancing the calendar form. We'll tidy up the layout and add a double-click event so you can open the appointment form for any specific day by double-clicking a calendar box. I'll also introduce you to a trick using Microsoft Excel to help automate the coding process. In lesson nine, we'll start creating the printable version of the monthly calendar report. In lesson ten, we'll complete the printed report. I'll point out a few differences in how the code works on reports compared to forms, and we'll explore some details about build events for reports. My advice is to watch each lesson all the way through the first time without trying to follow along in real time. After you've seen the whole lesson, watch it again and work through the examples step by step. Build the database as I show you, and wait to integrate the calendar into your own existing database until you're confident with the concepts. The database we're constructing in this seminar is not meant to be a full solution by itself. You'll probably want to merge it with your existing customer, sales, or appointment database after you've mastered the process. I recommend building it as a standalone project first before you try to integrate it elsewhere. You'll find a copy of the database I create in this seminar on my website at accesslearningzone.com/calendarseminar. However, you'll learn much more if you build everything along with the lessons instead of just downloading the finished version. If you have trouble or any questions, you can post in the student forums on my website. If you're watching online in my video player or the online theater, the forum appears next to the video. If you're watching offline, visit the website for direct access to the forums. You can find a complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions for everything discussed here on my website at the link below. Live long and prosper, my friends. Topic ListSetting up the database and creating calendar tablesBuilding a calendar form to display appointments Creating an appointment list form Using a triple state checkbox to filter closed and open items Building a query to separate appointment date and time Designing a date picker form for selecting dates Creating a monthly calendar display form Adding list boxes for each day in the monthly calendar Using the ActiveX calendar control for date selection Writing code to find the first Sunday for calendar alignment Graying out days from different months on the calendar form Looping through form fields with VBA code Setting up double-click events to edit appointments Automating VBA code with Excel for the calendar form Formatting and cleaning up the calendar form appearance Building a printable monthly calendar report Adjusting VBA for calendar reports vs. forms Working with build events for reports |
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| Keywords: Access Calendar Seminar PermaLink How To Build a Fully Functional Calendar Form and Printable Monthly Report in Microsoft Access |
