MS-Access / Getting Started

Testing Your Data Macro

You've now completed all the steps necessary to prevent any new records from being added to the tblWeekDays table. To test the data macro that you've created so far, you first need to save your changes to the Before Change event. Click the Save button in the Close group on the Design contextual tab under Macro Tools or click the Save button on the Quick Access Toolbar. Now click the Close button in the Close group to close the Logic Designer window and return to the Datasheet view of the tblWeekDays table. To test this Before Change event, you need to create a new record in this table. Click in the Week- DayText field on the new record line of the datasheet, enter any text other than one of the existing weekday names, and then tab or click outside of the new record line. Access displays the custom error that you created in the RaiseError data action.

The Before Change event fires because you are inserting a new record into this table. In this event, Access checks to see if a new record is being inserted using the IsInsert property. If the IsInsert property is True, the RaiseError data action fires, Access displays the custom message that you created, and then Access cancels the insert. When you click OK in the message box, Access keeps your focus on the new record that you are trying to insert. You now need to press Esc to undo your changes to the new record. There is no way that you can add records to this table unless you remove the data macro that you defined in the Before Change event of the table. Access enforces this restriction no matter what the entry point is for creating a new record. As you can see, data macros are a very powerful new feature in Access 2010.

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In this tutorial:

  1. Creating Table Data Macros
  2. Uses of Data Macros
  3. The Data Macro Design Facility
  4. Access New Logic Designer
  5. Working with Before Events
  6. Grouping Macros
  7. Using If Blocks to Create Conditional Expressions
  8. Raising Errors in Data Macros to Cancel Events
  9. Testing Your Data Macro
  10. Defining Multiple Actions
  11. Collapsing and Expanding Actions
  12. Moving Actions
  13. Preventing Duplicate Records Across Multiple Fields
  14. Before Delete
  15. Working with After Events
  16. After Update
  17. After Delete
  18. Working with Named Data Macros
  19. Saving Named Data Macros
  20. Calling Named Data Macros
  21. Renaming and Deleting Named Data Macros
  22. Analyzing Errors in the USysApplicationLog Table
  23. Using Parameters
  24. Using Local Variables
  25. Working with Return Variables
  26. Debugging Data Macros
  27. Understanding Recursion in Data Macros
  28. Sharing Data Macro Logic