How to do a lookup or index/match in Access? - ms-access

Question

I'm new to access and I'm struggling on how to use lookups since vlookup is not available in Access. I want to get the values that correspond to a certain ID/tagging.
I have 2 tables.
Table A contains values let's say Product Number, Product Type, Price, Remaining Stock #, Product Type+Product Number Tag. Let's say product number is not unique but combining it with its product type, it will be unique so I created that tag.
Table B contains Seller's Name, # of items Sold, Product Number, Product Type, Product Type+Product Number Tag.
Now using Table A and Table B, how can I create a query/table that will allow me to use that "Product Number + Product Type" Tag when I try to get the price of that certain item so that I can get the total revenue of each seller.
I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. What I just want to do is I want to use this "Type+Number" Tag as a reference point in getting data of that respective item when I try to create queries/tables. It's just like an INDEX/MATCH in Excel. But how to do it in Access?
Please tell me if it's unclear.
Thank you!

Answer 1

You need to join your two tables based on the relationship between the Product Number & Product Type fields in both tables.
The two fields in Table A should be marked as the composite Primary Key (select both fields and in the Design ribbon click the Primary Key icon).
In Table B they will be Foreign Keys - a seller could sell those products more than once, so duplicates are allowed here.
You don't need the Product Type+Product Number Tag field.
The SQL for your query would then be:
SELECT *
FROM [Table A] LEFT JOIN [Table B] ON [Table A].[Product Number] = [Table B].[Product Number] AND
[Table A].[Product Type] = [Table B].[Product Type]
This will return all records from Table A and only those records from Table B that match the Primary Key.
Finally.... don't think of an Access table as an Excel spreadsheet. Access is all about the relationship between pieces of data - for a start queries can be expressed in plain English a lot easier.
E.g return all records from table B where seller name is "Dave" and date is between 1st Jan and 31st Jan would be written as:
SELECT *
FROM [Table B]
WHERE [Seller Name]='Dave' AND
[Sale Date] Between #01/01/2018# AND #01/31/2018#
(SQL only deals in US date format).

Answer 2

You can use DlookUp Function.
It can be used on queries as a calculated field, or in code in VBA:
For example, to get the price of a PRoduct, you could use something like:
DlookUp("[Price]";"Table A";"[Product Type+Product Number Tag]='" & Value & "'")
From my point of view, the complex part of DlookUp is the third argument, the WHERE clausule. If you have any experience with SQL, you will have no problem. If you don't, don't worry, just read some info and if you get stuck, come here to SO
You can use DlookUp to get any value of any field, based on a criteria (criteria applied to a unique field, ofc).
And yes, you can use it to get values from tables or from queries. In the link I provided before, it explains how the arguments works.
The most complex part is the criteria part. You must write as if you were typing a WHERE clausule on SQL more info here
About the criteria, always remember this:
If your criteria is a numeric value, then just type [field_criteria]=my_numeric_criteria
If your criteria is a text value, you must use single quotes. For example, [field_criteria]='my_text_criteria'
SQL requires single quotes around text values.
Try it!