Microsoft Access 2010 : Creating Data Macros

A data macro is a macro that executes in response to data changing within a table. The following are the events that you can respond to:

• After data is inserted

• After data is updated

• After data is deleted

• Before data is deleted

• Before data is changed

Respond to Events

Here’s how it works:

1.	Open the table to which you want to add the data macros in Design view.
2.	Click the Create Data Macros drop-down in the Field, Record & Table Events drop-down on the Table Tools Design tab of the Ribbon. The drop-down appears as in Figure 1. Figure 1. The Create Data Macros drop-down allows you to select the data event you want to respond to.
3.	Select the event you wish to respond to. For the example I have selected After Insert (see Figure 2). Figure 2. The After Insert event executes after you insert a record into a table.
4.	Open the Action drop-down and select the desired action. In Figure 3, I have selected LookUpRecord. Access prompts for the table in which to look up the record, the condition under which to perform the action, and the action to perform. The completed event appears in Figure 4. It looks up a record in the Users table where the Order ID in the Orders table matches the Order ID of the current record in the Order Details table. It then increments the value of the field NumberOfDetailItems in the Orders table by 1.

Figure 3. The LookUpRecord action looks up a record in another table where the specified condition is true.

Figure 4. This event increments the value of the NumberOfDetailItems field each time that the user enters an Order Detail record.