Outlook, ACT!, Goldmine, QuickBooks, PDA, Blackberry? What Is the Common Denominator?

They are all relational databases.

I can take your QuickBooks data, migrate it to Excel, then to Access and create a Lost Business Report that can be used to recapture lost sales as well as measure the performance of each sales person. Or if you get a Blackberry and all of your contact data is in a Pocket PC, I can migrate the information safely into your Blackberry and also set up your phone to sync with a contact management program such as MS Outlook. I can work with the following Database sets: QuickBooks, MS Access, MS Excel, ACT!, SQL, Peachtree, TigerPaw, PeopleSoft, Outlook, Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, and Blackberry.

According to Wikipedia, a relational database is:

"A relational database matches data by using common characteristics found within the data set. The resulting groups of data are organized and are much easier for many people to understand.
For example, a data set containing all the real-estate transactions in a town can be grouped by the year each transaction occurred, the sale price, a buyer's last name and so on. Such a grouping uses the relational model (a technical term for this is schema). Hence, such a database is called a "relational database."
The software used to do this grouping is called a relational database management system (RDBMS). The term "relational database" often refers to this type of software.
Relational databases are currently the predominant choice in storing data like financial records, medical records, personal information and manufacturing and logistical data."

PowerPoint for Impactful Presentations

Using Microsoft PowerPoint, you can create moving presentations with graphics, sound, and animation. Use for demonstrations to clients, training manuals, speaker presentations, etc.

Here are some examples: (Click to enlarge)

Microsoft Word

In addition to writing form letters and using mail merge to create labels or envelopes, you can use Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, or Excel to create documents ready to send to the printers via email. Save gas, time, and avoid printing discrepancies.

Microsoft Word can allow you to create flyers, posters, signs, technical documentation and more! Here are just of few examples: (Click to enlarge)

Types of Documents You Can Make Using Visio 2007: (Click Twice to See Original Size.)

Business (Click to enlarge)

Engineering (Click to enlarge)

Flowchart (Click to enlarge)

 

General (Click to enlarge)

 

Maps and Floor Plans (Click to enlarge)

 

Network (Click to enlarge)

Schedule (Click to enlarge)

Software and Database (Click to enlarge)

Using Visio - What is Visio?

Visio is a powerful program that can be used in Project Management, Designing/Documenting Computer and/or Phone Networks, Laying out the Floor Plan for Office Space,Construction Plans - HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing and Piping Plan, Plant Layouts, and much much more!

I can publish your document as a PDF or XPS file, save a backup for you, and give you your copy, if you already have Visio. If you do not, you will have the PDF or XPS file to aid you in your planning and/or documentation needs.

Here is one of MANY templates for diagramming a computer network: (Click to enlarge)

You can see what free templates Microsoft offers by clicking here.

In the next post, I will post screen shots of the current templates Visio has for you to create your own!

Email Marketing Campaings Using Microsoft Publisher

By using both PhotoFiltre, a free photo editing program, and MS Publisher, I created this for an email marketing campaign for a client: (Click to enlarge)

Google Analytics - Harness the Power of Free Website Tracking and Demographic Data

Google Analytics is a powerful tool for companies to use. Here are the reasons to use Google Analytics, according to Google:

"Why should I use Google Analytics? Who is it for?

Google Analytics provides powerful tracking for anyone with a web presence, whether it be a small hobby website or a giant online enterprise. It's one of the most powerful web analytics solutions on the market - and it's free for anyone to use. In addition, Google AdWords customers can even see their Analytics data from inside their AdWords account - we've added an tab with your Analytics reports and settings. Just go to Reporting>Google Analytics. Plus, Analytics automatically tags your AdWords campaigns for detailed tracking, and AdWords advertisers benefit from unlimited pageviews. You can find the full list of benefits Analytics offers here.

To get started with Analytics, please visit our home page. To read what kind of questions Analytics can answer for different users, please continue reading below.

For Executives:

    * Which marketing initiatives are most effective?
    * What are accurate traffic patterns/trends on my websites?
    * Which customer and customer segments are most valuable?

For Marketing Professionals:

    * Where are my visitors coming from and what do they do on my site?
    * How can my website convert more visitors into customers?
    * Which keywords resonate with prospects and lead to conversions?
    * Which online ad or creative is the most effective?

For Content & Web Developers:

    * Why do so many people leave my site without doing what I want?
    * Are there website design elements that are turning visitors away?
    * What site content are people most interested in?"


When you first log into Google Analytics, your Dashboard appears: (Click to enlarge)

Here is a sample of a report summary on my website's (http://masteringfarmville.blogspot.com/) visitor information: (Click twice to view it's original size.)

You Create Forms to Print or Manage in a Paperless Environment

Through programming Excel with Visual Basic Script, you can create dynamic forms that you can even use to populate a database, fill in and print out, or save as a file for paperless tracking or all of these. (Click to enlarge)

Create a Popup Window When Excel Opens

You can write Visual Basic code (VB Script) to create a popup  window that opens upon opening Excel. Here is the result: (Click to enlarge)

If you have a lot of data and don't want to have to interrupt the columns to place a chart, I can create a "Legend Button" to define your data. See example below: (Click twice to view it's original size.)

Ranking / Filtering a Query

I will use an example. I wanted to find out which crops give me the highest mastery points. I opened the CropsProfitQuery. Clicked on the "Experience" column, then clicked the "Sort Z to A" button to rank the highest number to the lowest number of Experience Points. You can see where this can help me in developing a strategy to level up quickly in Farmville by gaining the most experience out of each crop harvest. (Click to enlarge)

How Queries Help You Gain Information

Here is a query of the Crops and Profit per crops in Zynga's game, Farmville. My goal was to unite information from two tables. One table had the crops profit information and another had the crops mastery information. (Click to enlarge)

Here are the two tables that I queried (in form view): (Click to enlarge)

Access 2010 Database - Mastering Farmville - How to Data Mine off the Web

I created this database for a class final project. In my introduction of the main paper (since there are many documents that are supporting the database):

Purpose:

I would love to have my own database that I could query in various ways to answer various questions I may have regarding Farmville Crop Mastery. The goal is to earn as many mastery signs as quickly as possible. I chose this goal since I love showing off the pretty Mastery Signs on my farm.

My plan is to learn how to data-mine off the internet so I can have a new skill I can use to sell to potential clients and earn extra money to pay bills and also to obtain the experience for my resume. To achieve this I will use various programs: Word 2010, Excel 2010, Access 2010, PhotoFiltre Studio 9.0, and possibly Notepad.exe.

"This is a screenshot of what the data I want to mine looks like:" (Click to enlarge)

 

I will not go into specifics (unless you ask in a post below) but by using a few different programs: notepad, Word, Excel, and Access I was able to migrate the data into an Access Database WITHOUT having to retype all of the data. This also can be done using XML, when available. I also can save the data in Excel as an XML document.

How data mining works: "Data mining is a component of a wider process called “knowledge discovery from database”².  It involves scientists and statisticians, as well as those working in other fields such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, information retrieval and pattern recognition. "

Click for Source 

The benefits of data mining are as follows:

1. You can obtain leads for your sales reps.
2. You save money since you do not need to pay anyone to enter the data.
3. You can perform various analyses of the data.

There are drawbacks: (same source cited above)

1. Privacy issues.
2. Security issues.
3. Misuse of information/inaccurate information.

Is Your Sales Force Working Strategically?

Are they using databases to keep track of important client information?

If so, is the database normalized in order to prevent data redundancy? Data redundancy happens when the data in a field is repeated in two or more tables/queries.

If not, a database can provide a client profile to keep track of products used, client preferences (e.g. 2 of the staff are vegetarian, which helps in planning lunches). It can also provide sales reports, productivity results, monthly sales data, data comparison to find lost business and also show income opportunities.

If you have Microsoft Access, I can create a meaningful database that will add to your bottom line profits. During my tenure in Medical Sales, I used databases extensively to strategically plan my call route (based on client ranking), classify my clients (A, B, C, D, E) in order to know right away who my top clients are. The top 20% of clients usually account for 80% of sales.

Here is an example of an Access database where I wrote SQL script for a Union query in order to join several tables. Each table is labeled Monday, Tuesday, etc. and I joined them to show a weeks worth of client data. The week represented my call cycle. I kept track of what "goodies" my clients liked so they knew I was thinking of them and appreciated their business. It may be a bit of work to set up, which I can do for you. But by managing my database daily as part of my strategy implementation, I was able to grow from #32 to #1 (tied with another MRI Center) in only EIGHT months.

Figure 1 Example of a Union Query results: (Click to enlarge)

Figure 2 below depicts a Switchboard that has all of the tasks that I may want to do. NOTE: There is a security warning at the top. This is expected since the database contains Macros. Wikipedia defines a macro as follows:

"A macro (from the Greek μάκρο for "big" or "far") in computer science is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped to an output sequence (also often a sequence of characters) according to a defined procedure. The mapping process that instantiates (transforms) a macro into a specific output sequence is known as macro expansion.

The term originated with the idea of macro instruction for assembler programs, to make available to the programmer a sequence of computing instructions as a single program statement, making the programming task less tedious and less error-prone.[1][2] Macros often allow positional or keyword parameters that dictate what the conditional assembler program generates and have been used to create entire programs or program suites according to such variables as operating system, platform or other factors."

Since I wrote these macros and they are not a virus (thus the reason for the Security Warning), I will select the "Enable" option by clicking "Options", and then select the "Enable" radio button to enable the macros that I wrote in the database. (Click to enlarge)

Once I have enabled the macros, my Switchboard looks like this: (Click twice to view it's original size.)

The Florida record below as a "Duplicate Record" button. This is to make a copy of the record so that a new client from that facility may be entered without RETYPING the address, phone, etc. Notice that you can view a table, preview reports, and print reports.This was created in Access 2003. I have other databases that I have utilized Access 2007 and 2010. They look different.

Here is an example of a Switchboard created in Access 2010: (Click twice to view it's original size.)

This Switchboard is from my database "Farmville Crop Mastery". I will discuss more about this in the next thread.