Extend Microsoft Access Applications to the Cloud: Creating a Blank Web App and Using Templates

Creating a new table

To create new tables, click the Table icon on the home ribbon or, at the bottom of the Table Selector, click the Add New Table button. Either method will display the Add Tables screen shown in Figure 4-6. On the right side of the screen at the end of the second paragraph of text, click the Add A New Blank Table hyperlink.

FIGURE 4-6 Add Tables page.

After you click the link, Access displays the design interface. Here you need to add two new fields to the table design (FirstName and Surname, which are both Short Text data types), as shown in Figure 4-7. In Chapter 3, “Converting a desktop database to a web app,” in the section “Importing different data types.” I listed the available data types for use in a web app.

FIGURE 4-7 A new table viewed in the design interface.

Each table will automatically be assigned a primary key AutoNumber called ID. This field can be renamed but not deleted from the table design. You can change the name of the key to a more meaningful name—for example, ContactID, which is used for the new table design in this chapter.

Save the table with the name CustomerContacts. Before getting deeper into the design, you will change the names of all the primary and foreign-key fields to make them easier to understand, rather than accepting the default names for the fields.