Too few analysts have discovered the power of Microsoft Access for crime analysis. It’s really a shame too because this tool is very powerful and not difficult to learn.  We feel so passionate about this tool that we offer a training course in its use (check out our Access course here) and plan on providing a series of articles on our website about how it can be used.  But first we need to clear up some myths about MS Access, which may be contributing to its lack of use by crime analysts.

Myth 1: MS Access is basically the same as MS Excel

I know several analysts who think this (they obviously don’t use Access regularly), but let’s look at this subject strictly from a distribution standpoint: if these two programs are the same, why hasn’t Microsoft merged them?  That would cut down on their support costs.  The answer is that these programs are not the same.  While they can do some of the same tasks, most of their functions are very different, and they do different crime analysis tasks well.  As a crime analyst, we need to complete tasks using the best suited program, not try to make one program (Excel) do the tasks of the other (Access).  This will make us more efficient, save time, and allow us to complete more analyses.  If you don’t use MS Access, you may not even realize that you are being inefficient.

Myth 2: My agency doesn’t have it have it or won’t let me use it

While it may not be installed on your machine, your agency already has MS Access.  MS Access is packaged with Microsoft Office Professional, the version of MS Office your agency has.  If you have MS Word and Excel on your machine, there is no cost for your agency to install Access as well. While it may be true that your agency may have concerns about your use of Access, you can and should push back.  If there are complaints about the use of Access, they usually come from the IT department.  Sometimes this comes from a control perspective, a lack of understanding of how crime analysts use MS Access, or a perception they can offer a better solution (they rarely do).  Please remember that the role of IT is to support your systems, not to define them.  Please contact us for more information about how to speak so IT will listen if this is your problem.  We have overcome this pushback at every agency we have consulted for.

Myth 3: I’m functioning well with Excel, so I don’t need to learn Access

But are you really functioning well just using Excel?  This is doubtful, because Excel is not a database tool, it’s not a reporting tool, it’s not a query tool, and all data formatting and cleaning must be done manually in the spreadsheet.  If you are creating reports in Excel, you are spending a great deal of time formatting, which is inefficient.  In Access, a report is created just once, and the data is then fed to that same format each time the report is run.  Even if you don’t use Access, you should be using a data reporting tool.  Excel is also not a data storage tool.  Excel has size caps that are much smaller than Access, and there is a higher risk of having your data scrambled in Excel than Access.  As for queries, Access can be used to format and clean some data as the data is queried.  Access can also combine data from different sources.  All of these tasks in Access require less time to complete than they would in Excel.

The biggest reason crime analysts underutilize Access seems to be a lack of knowledge about what the program can do for them.  It will make you more efficient if you use Access’ reporting functionality, clean upon query functions, link directly to GIS, spreadsheet, and dashboard software (no more exporting and importing data), storage of data, and querying capabilities.

In our most recent Access class, students reached that ‘Aha moment’ on day two when they saw how efficient using MS Access will make them.  If you are using overusing Excel, then you are underusing tools that will make you more efficient.  This is explained in depth during an analyst discussion about MS Access and its use in crime analysis on Cocktails and Crime Analysis here (discussion begins at 26:04).  It’s worth the watch and hopefully drives home the need for the use of MS Access by crime analysts.

Let us know if you have any questions about how MS Access and its crime analysis applications.  We hope to see you on a future course!