I have beginner level experience using Access

I’m trying to develop a database in which I’m importing 2 tables.  One is imported from an excel file while the other is imported from a cvs file.  These tables will require regular updating (once a week or bi-weekly).  I’ve then created relationships between these tables and other tables created in the database.

The issue I’m having is being able to re-import/overwrite the imported tables periodically.  I’ve saved the import preferences/specification, and when I try to re-run them, access tells me it can’t.  More specifically it tells me it can’t because the table is participating in at least one relationship.

This seems like it defeats the whole purpose of using access if you can’t re-import or update your data because it’s related.  Aren’t relationships the cornerstone of having the data tables communicate with each other?  I looked in the help files, but haven’t come across anything addressing this issue.  Am I missing something here?  I there something fundamentally wrong that I’m doing?

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Answer from Richard Rost:

You are correct in your assumption that this is a problem with relationships… and this is one of the reasons that I normally don't set up database-level relationships unless I absolutely need them (for cascade updates or deletes).

I prefer to set up all of my relationships just using queries. If you get rid of the database-level relationship, then you should be OK. The only downside is that you'll have to manually perform any updates or deletes in those tables.