Do I Really Need to Learn Microsoft Access?

If you're taking training at an educational facility or just trying to upgrade your training so you can be a better administrative assistant you may be wondering about Access and how much you really need it. A lot of people put off learning it because, well, it is kind of hard at first. But it is worth knowing.

First, you should understand what Access is. It is a database creation and management software that can store, sort, and manipulate data. Clear as mud right? Well, I can make it easier to understand by telling you how administrative assistants often use it.

Do you know Excel? You probably do already or are learning it in an Administrative Professional course. Well, imagine that you have 50 Excel spreadsheets and each spreadsheet has 50 columns and 50,000 rows. That's a lot of information isn't it? Oh, and don't forget that each row and column is a different type of information. Well, maybe not every one but many of them are different. Sometimes the information in the rows are found in columns on other spreadsheets. Is your mind boggled yet?

Ok, now one day your boss says to you, "I need to know how many of our customers in Vancouver, Montreal, and Quebec are spending more than $10,000 a year and I want you to go back five years. But I only want to know about the customers that are making purchases at our Store A, Store D, and Store M. Oh, and I only want the customers that have used MasterCard to pay us." You do have all that information but it is spread across 10 of those spreadsheets. Are you crying in the corner yet? Well, if you don't know Access you likely are!

However, if you know Access already you are quite likely to have all that information in a database in Access and because you have those databases you can use queries to pull all that information together into a table and present your boss with a nice, tidy report in a fairly short period of time.

So, to answer the question - yes, you do need to learn Access. Access will help you:

- handle large volumes of data
- answer complex questions
- combine data from multiple tables and databases.

Upgrade your administrative skills
or train as an administrative professional at Robertson College.

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Administrative Professionals' Day/Week

You know what this week is right?  It's Administrative Professional's Week - OUR week!  And the 21st of April is Administrative Professional's Day!

Did you know this has been happening since 1952?  I actually thought this was a fairly new thing until I started looking at it more.  Apparently, this New York publicist, Harry F. Klemfuss, was working with the National Secretaries Association (now the International Association of Administrative Professionals) and they turned it into this national event.  Now almost every office celebrates Administrative Professional's Day by doing nice things for their administrative staff.

What kinds of things should bosses do for their admin staff?  Well, I always say that if you know your staff you won't have a hard time figuring out what to buy them but that doesn't always happen so here are a few ideas that will work for almost everyone:

• coffee club card
• movie gift certificates
• a longer lunch (paid for by the boss!)
• gift baskets 
• spa day
• a day off
• a subscription to their favorite magazine
• tickets to a concert
• your airmiles
• amazon gift card

Really, the list can go on and on.  

The bottom line is that admins should be appreciated every day - we do a lot of work - but it is nice that there is a special day just for us to remind our bosses; just in case they forget!

Top 10 Gifts for Administrative Guys

There are lots of administrative assistants out there that are men and they might not appreciate the standard flowers that female admins tend to get.  So what do you get for them on the upcoming Administrative Assistant's Day?
Here's some ideas:

1. Movie gift cards - almost everyone likes to see movies so either a movie rental card or gift certificates for a movie theater are great ideas.
2. I-tunes cards.  Of course this isn't going to be great if they don't have an I-pod but if they do they'll be likely to find something they can add to their playlist on the I-tunes store.
3. Coffee club card - does your admin love coffee?  Then get him a card for a coffee club at a place he goes to often.
4. Tickets - there's always something coming up that they will want to see - concerts or sports events are two good choices.  Find out what they like first though.  No sense in getting him tickets for a football game if he doesn't even know who your local team is!
5. His own business cards.  Administrative assistants network as well so get him something classy that he can hand out.  Make him feel like an important part of your company.
6. Mouse wrist support pad.  Show him you care about his health on the job.
7. Personalized items - mouse pads, coffee cups, money clips - almost anything can be personalized these days.
8. Restaurant gift certificate - does he have a favorite restaurant or is there a new restaurant he's been talking about going to?
9. Subscription to a magazine.
10. Time off - what admin isn't going to appreciate that?

The most important thing when buying a gift for an admin - male or female - is to make sure that it is something thoughtful.  Don't buy him a coffee gift card if he only drinks tea.  If you're not sure, talk to some of his co-workers.  There are sure to be some of them that would be happy to make sure you get him something that he'll appreciate.