Advice for a beginner

[MittenWinter]

Hi! I am working on a database hobby project and I am very much a beginner. I really need some advice because I feel like I am spinning my wheels.


I have two large sources of data. One is about 750,000 rows of user inputted data, the other is about 2.5 million rows of standardized error free data with a 10 digit ID code.


Every of the 750,000 rows of data that is user inputted can be found within the other sheet but it often has human errors so I need to match a lot of inexact data. I need to link them all up the best I can and tag all of the user inputted data with the 10 digit code. That way I do not have to relay on the user inputted data with errors and everything is standardized. The two sheets share the following columns Fname, Lname, Address and City.


Up until this point I have been trying to match all of the data through Excel but the biggest problem is how large the data is. You can't have sheets any bigger then a million rows so it becomes near impossible at one point. My plan was always to clean the data in Excel and then load it into Access where it could become user friendly.


Can anyone tell me if I am headed down the right path? Can I use Access to match all of the data easier then Excel? Am I on the right path?


Please any advice at all would be so helpful this thing is driving me crazy.

[alansidman]

You can import the two sheets into two tables in Access. You can then join the two tables and then extract from both tables the data that you want on the matching tables.

It is a rather simple and quick process in Access.

[MittenWinter]

Really? Can you point me in the direction of what to Google?

I didn't know it was simple to match inexact data like address and names in Access.

[alansidman]

Tutorial on importing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aH56dxqLhg
Tutorial on Joins in Query http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9p...l#.UOysFuSEqSo
Tutorial on Parameters in Query http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYhXDwnO8yU