I’m often asked about the Access foreign key and why we should use it in the first place. Well, to start with, take a look at this quick one and half minute video tutorial below to cover one use for it which briefly also explains one reason…
Access Foreign Key: My Additional Comments On Microsoft Access Relationships
In the video it clearly explained that an Access foreign key is the other end of a primary key’s relationship when connecting two tables together (as shown with the ‘Dept’ ID).
This will help with Microsoft Access relationships when connecting two or more tables together for your queries and other output options that uses queries as the database engine (known as JET and ACE) looks to indexed fields first; in other words, primary and foreign keys when connecting and running reports.
This will speed up the output delivery and can make a huge difference with large volumes of data.
One other added benefit therefore is to set an Access foreign key to fields, which users tend to apply criteria and sorting on a regular basis too as the Access compiler will again look to these fields first when running those queries.
If you want to know more about Microsoft Access databases, then why not take a look at my eBook offer on understanding Microsoft Access relationships which demonstrates more about indexing with sample data to test and evaluate.
Tags: access foreign key, foreign key and primary key, foreign key database, foreign key relationship, microsoft access relationships, MS Access
When setting a primary key and foreign keys in a table, do not over uses indexing as it will slow the general application ‘performance’ down. In a table, you can set up to 10 indexes that will give you some protection here in any case.