Libre Office Database program

stefano

I am unemployed and seeking employment, so I thought I could educate myself on the various Office programs, as most desk jobs these days may require the use of databases.
What could be the best purpose of a database, for example, for a domestic purpose, just so that I can practice and play with it to educate myself?
I know all other Office programs by heart, database is the only one I am ignorant about.

G42

How about playing around with an inventory of your house contents.

For example. Furniture: In which room it's situated: Type: Value.

Do the same with all the other contents then play with the data.

stefano

I just cannot get my head around the concept of data. I do everything on spreadsheets. As an example, I teach driving as a hobby, and keep a record of my students' lessons, how much they pay, how many miles each lesson is, how much the fuel costs are etc.
Is a database an alternative to a spreadsheet?

bod1467

In a way, yes - they can be somewhat interchangeable. A database is more for structured records-keeping and information processing; a spreadsheet is more for calculations.

Your driving lessons scenario is actually better-suited to a database, wherein you can create reports based on the information stored in the database tables. In the database you might have tables like:

Students (StudentID | FirstName | LastName | Address | IsCurrentStudent)

Lessons (StudentID | Date | Time | Duration | Mileage | FuelCost | FeeID)

Fees (FeeID | FeeAmount)

Each time a new student signs up you create a new record in the Students table. When that student takes a lesson then you populate the Lessons table. The Fees table contains the info about the fees you charge. You can create forms in the database program to allow you to edit and insert information into the database.

stefano

Would a database allow me to view records based on individual students, whereas in a spreadsheet, I would have to sort the rows in alphabetical order first?

bod1467

Yes - that's exactly what one common use is for a database. You just create a report for it. Or write a query (SQL) to run and return the info you desire.

stefano

You make it sound so simple. I am sure once I do one, there will be no stopping. Everything's easy once you know how. But it is that first one that is difficult.

bod1467

Indeed. But a good learning exercise - which is exactly what you asked for in your OP.

stefano

I will give that a go, and follow your instructions.
Thanks
BTW: why have both student and fee have ID next to it?

InsideInsurance

Whilst every business uses databases I personally would question if looking at Libre Office's database is too much worth while....

1) It is significantly different to Microsoft Access

2) All but the smallest companies are dumping Access as quickly as money allows as it was never designed to be a commercial solution or be part of a business critical solution

What are you actually trying to achieve? What jobs are you hoping to get?

Would a database allow me to view records based on individual students, whereas in a spreadsheet, I would have to sort the rows in alphabetical order first?

Start by reading about the basics of relational databases as this will be agnostic to the database used.

A database is effectively a series of spreadsheets. For each row in each spreadsheet you create a "Primary key" which is its unique identifier within that spreadsheet. They are called relational databases because in a second spreadsheet you again have a unique key but may cross reference the key from another spreadsheet (this is called a foreign key)

So in the example of students attending lessons as above, you have the first table/ spreadsheet that contains a list of all the students with StudentID as the key. Then for each lesson they attend you insert a new into the Lessons table and rather than having to type in all the students details again you simply enter their StudentID

This has a number of advantages, for one, if a student changes their name you only have to change it once in the Student table and not in every lesson they've taken. You can also do aggregate functions very easily and so can for example identify all students that have been to more than 5 lessons


If youre wanting to do anything "serious" with databases then you may want to think about using a more commercial database. All of the big players (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM etc) now have a free "express" version of their software that you can install and run on your home computer. They lack a few of the most advanced features and normally limited to a few million records but is plenty for learning.

Their disadvantage is they are a true database which is a backend only and do not have a front end built into them. There are plenty of free front ends you can get but they tend to have a steeper learning curve than Access

bod1467

stefano wrote: »

BTW: why have both student and fee have ID next to it?

II's post covers this very well.

PS - Notice the button?