From the course: Cert Prep: Access Expert - Microsoft Office Specialist for Office 2019 and Office 365

Modify tab order on forms and sort by field

From the course: Cert Prep: Access Expert - Microsoft Office Specialist for Office 2019 and Office 365

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Modify tab order on forms and sort by field

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- [Instructor] To move between controls or fields on a form, we use the tab key. Sometimes, when fields are entered into the form out of order, our tab order is not correct. After watching this video, you'll know how to change the tab order on a form so it will tab from the top of the form down to the bottom. You'll also learn how easy it is to sort your data right in your form field, and also how you can filter the data on the form field. Let's jump right into our tab order, sort, and filter database, and we're going to work with our sales rep customer form. Let me show you what the tab order currently is in this form. I'm starting right on this salesperson field and as I tab down, it was okay until we got to the date and then it hopped up to the top field, order ID. And then down to the bottom field, total cost. Let me show you how easy it is to fix that. We'll right click on the tab and go to design view, and on our form design tools design tab, we have tab order. And we can compare the custom order that is showing in our tab order window with what we have on our form, so this is the order it actually goes in. All I have to do is come down here and click auto order, and now it matches. Order ID, salesperson, customer, et cetera, so that's how easy it is to change your tab order. That means we can add or delete fields to our forms and reports without having to worry about how hard it's going to be to change that tab order. Let's test it out. We'll go back into form view. I'm starting in the order ID field and I'll tab all the way down from top to bottom. That looks much better. Next, let's take a look at how we can sort the data in our form using a field. As I scroll through using the navigation buttons at the bottom of the form, we notice that the order ID is increasing incrementally. So it's currently sorted by order ID. I'll click in the customer field and we'll change the sort order to customer. We'll right click on the field and choose sort A to Z. So now my first record is B and B Spaces, and as I use the navigation buttons to scroll through, you can see the order number changing and the salesperson changing, but we're still looking at B and B Spaces in the customer field. If I want to filter out all of the salespeople except for Evan Flyer, I can click in that field, right click, come down to my filter options and choose equals Evan Flyer. Now I see that I have 48 records that relate to Evan Flyer, and as I scroll through, I can see the order number changing, but we're only looking at records for Evan Flyer. So now that you know how to change the tab order in your form, and how to sort and filter using your form fields, practice using your own databases so that you're really comfortable with these techniques when you take the exam.

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