Working with your database, Access indexing is often overlooked and ignored – why? Because your application will still run, working well and see no reason to take any action. In fact, ignoring this feature you do open yourself up to more performance issues particularly for the larger database file.
Tale a quick look at an updated video tutorial about Access indexing and why you should seriously consider setting your fields properly.
MS Access Indexing: What And How To Apply – My Thoughts
You need to be clear about the differences between primary and foreign keys as they are both types of indexes and play an important role in setting your database relationships.
Remember, an indexed field makes your field mandatory and cannot be left empty (or as a Null value) so don’t over use them as it will restrict and frustrate users.
One of the biggest strengths to the Microsoft Access application is the ability to join tables together forming relationships which helps to keep the data integrity as tight as possible. We therefore need to master Access indexing with the concept and practices of understanding database relationships (RDBMS)
Tags: access indexing, access table indexing, field indexes, how to apply field indexing, MS Access, setting primary keys
Setting indexes in Access (via tables) will improve performance but can impede on other aspects to Access including updating data. Therefore a balance is required here and is backed by the fact you can only set up to 10 fields (to be indexed) in a table.