Frequently Asked Questions
Pre-Sales Questions/How Does it Work?
Technical Support Questions
Pre-Sales Questions/How Does it Work?
Total Access Statistics is an Access add-in and is Access version
specific. For example, Total Access Statistics 2007 only works as an add-in
through Access 2007.
However, Total Access Statistics works with databases in any format that
is supported by the specific version of Access. For example, Total Access
Statistics 2007 works with MDB databases that are in Access 2000 or Access
2002-2003 format, Access 2007 format (*ACCDB), and Access Data Projects (ADPs),
provided the database is opened in Access 2007.
The following versions of Total Access Statistics are available:
No. There is no need to export data to Total Access Statistics or
import data from it.
Total Access Statistics runs as an Access add-in. Simply invoke
it from the add-ins menu and it's ready to analyze the data in your
currently opened database. Data from your local tables, linked
tables, and any query that returns records (SELECT or CROSSTAB
queries) can be analyzed. For ADPs, any View or Stored Procedure
that returns records can be beanalyzed.
All the results are in tables, so it's entirely integrated within
your database.
No. Total Access Statistics can be used without any programming.
It runs as an Access add-in which you can invoke right off the menu or
Access 2007 ribbon. A Statistics Wizard appears to guide you through the
selection of your data source, the fields to analyze, the calculations to
generate, and the output table names.
Your settings (not your data) are automatically stored so you can run
them again in the future.
Total Access Statistics includes a runtime library and distribution
license that lets you add statistical analysis directly in your Access
application. Simply add our library to the referenced libraries from your
VBA IDE, and you're ready to invoke our code.
Your users will be amazed at the advanced statistical analysis you can
generate with a button click, or maybe the data just shows up on their
report or form.
Easily run one of the scenarios you've created with a simple procedure
call. Options are available to let you customize whether your users see our
program running or not, so you can hide it completely from your users.
Note: The runtime library does not include the add-in's user interface to
let users specify their own calculations. If your users need this feature,
each user needs their own license of Total Access Statistics.
Yes! The latest versions of Total Access Statistics supports all
Access database formats including ADPs. This includes version 12 for
Access 2007, and versions 11.7, 10.7, and 9.7 for Access 2003,
2002/XP, and 2000 respectively.
It can analyze data from your ADP (SQL Server) tables, views,
stored procedures, and user defined functions that output records.
You can even provide parameters.
Pre-X.7 versions did not support ADPs. Existing customers can
upgrade for a nominal fee. Visit our
order form
or contact sales@fmsinc.com
for details.
Total Access Statistics analyzes the data from your table and
queries (for ADPs, it supports views, stored procedures, and user
defined functions). The way it analyzes data is similar to the way
you run an Access/SQL query where you can optionally "Group By"
fields you want to perform separate calculations on, and "Sum" on
fields to analyze. Multiple fields can be grouped and analyzed at
one time.
For instance, if you had demographic data, you could group by
"State" and perform percentile calculations on the "Age" and
"Income" fields to see the percentiles for age and income
(separately) for each State. If you didn't Group By "State", you'd
simply get the percentile values for all the records.
You can also designate a weighting field, or a value or ranges of
values to ignore in any of the calculations.
The results are provided in tables, so you can perform further
analysis on them or include them in your queries, forms, reports,
and code.
Your specifications are automatically saved so you can run it again.
For more details, see the
Product Guide.
Total Access Statistics can analyze an unlimited number of
records.
Total Access Statistics optimized to be extremely fast. For most
calculations, it only requires one pass through your data to
generate the results. Speed is mostly controlled by how fast it can
read your data (imagine a recordset reading every record) and
writing the results to the output table. The statistical
calculations themselves are very fast once the data is retrieved.
In most cases, the performance is similar to a regular query.
There are some calculations that require sorting (e.g. percentiles),
which take a bit more time depending on the amount of data being
analyzed.
All calculations are performed in double precision with 16 digits
of accuracy. Extensive testing has been conducted to ensure accuracy
with our program and against other commercial statistical analysis
products.
Having created commercial statistical analysis programs since
1990 and Total Access Statistics since 1993, FMS has a long track
record of delivering solid results for mission critical solutions.
No. Total Access Statistics generates its output in tables. These
tables can then be used by Access in forms and reports, or exported
to other products like Excel, where you can apply the built-in
graphing features.
Absolutely! Download the
Trial Version to try
Total Access Statistics on your own data before
you buy it. Scenarios created with the Trial
Version are preserved so that you won't need to
recreate them when you get the retail version.
Also, remember that all FMS products come with a
30-day money back guarantee, so you can
buy with confidence!
Yes! Total Access Statistics automatically
respects your security settings since it's
running within your database environment and not
outside it. So whether your database has a
password, Jet security, encryption, or other
login requirements, Total Access Statistics will
have the rights you have to analyze the data you
can see.
This applies to whether it's running as an add-in or through its runtime
library.
Several additional resources are available for you:
- A PDF flier
- The Product Guide
gives a detailed overview of the product features
- Download the
help file with
detailed descriptions of every option and calculation available to you.
- Download the
Trial Version and try it
on your own data.
If you still have questions, please contact us
so we can help you understand how Total Access
Statistics can fulfill your data analysis needs.
Technical Support Questions
Yes, Total Access Statistics is completely backward compatible. Every
version of Total Access Statistics runs scenarios created in earlier
versions. Just convert your database to the new version of Access, and Total
Access Statistics (for that version of Access) can run them.
If the scenario runs properly when invoked from the Add-in wizard, but
fails programmatically, there is usually a problem with how the Total Access
Statistics database is loaded as a library.
Make sure the runtime library of Total Access Statistics is
loaded as a library reference. This is set from a module under
the Tools, References menu.
Read the manual chapter or refer to the help file's section on
Advanced Topics for details on running Total Access Statistics
programmatically. See the SAMPLE database included with the program for
examples.
Yes, you can run a Total Access Statistics scenario from a macro. To do
so, refer to the Advanced Topics chapter of the Total Access
Statistics manual. You must understand how to prepare your database to
reference the Total Access Statistics library, the definition of the
TAS_Statistics function, and each of its parameters.
Create a macro and add a RunCode action. In the function name section,
enter "=TAS_Statistics" and its parameters. For instance:
=TAS_Statistics(5, "", "", "", True)
where 5 is the scenario number, and True sets the MsgDisplay parameter
(True displays progress info to the user, False hides it completely).
Since Total Access Statistics creates output tables in the current
database, you may clutter your database with unnecessary tables.
Using a Separate Database
If you are performing a lot of ad hoc analysis and want to keep it
separate from your main data tables, create a new database and link to your
data tables. This keeps the results of Total Access Statistics separate from
your main database. If you are not familiar with using linked tables,
consult your Microsoft Access manual or help file.
Using the latest version of Total Access Statistics
(versions X.7 or 12)
The latest versions of Total Access Statistics has a new feature
to update a field in your table with the percentile value for that
record. These are the percentile calculation options:
Notice that you can assign the percentile value to a field in
your table with an option to handle ties (multiple percentiles for
the same value) by assigning either the low or high percentile to
it.
Visit this page for additional information on
Calculating Percentiles in Microsoft Access with Total
Access Statistics
Using older versions of Total Access Statistics (pre-versions
X.7 or 12)
If you are using an older version, this feature does not exist,
but you can still get the results by running a query. With the
Percentiles option under Parametric analysis, Total Access
Statistics generates the value for each percentile. The output table
(default name TAS_Percentiles) shows in each of its records, the
percentile number and the corresponding value. With this table, you
can create a query linking back to your original table to show the
percentile of each record.
Using the SAMPLE table in the SAMPLE.MDB, create a scenario that
calculates Percentiles and put its results in the TAS_Percentiles table.
This query displays the percentile for each record in the SAMPLE table:
SELECT Sample.ID, TAS_Percentiles.State,
Sample.Age,
Max(TAS_Percentiles.Percentile) AS Percentile
FROM Sample
INNER JOIN TAS_Percentiles ON Sample.State = TAS_Percentiles.State
WHERE (((TAS_Percentiles.DataField)="Age") AND
((TAS_Percentiles.Value)<=[Age]))
GROUP BY Sample.ID, TAS_Percentiles.State, Sample.Age
ORDER BY Sample.Age
Just paste the SQL string above into a new query’s SQL View.
Alternatively, from the Query Designer:
Follow these steps:
- Place the SAMPLE and TAS_Percentiles tables on the query
- Link the Group fields between the tables ([State])
- Select from the Sample table, the key field ([ID]), group field
([State]) and the field analyzed ([Age])
- Select from the TAS_Percentiles table the [Percentile] field
- Make the query a Totals query (select Totals from the View menu) with
"Group By" for ID and Age, and "Max" for Percentiles. You should also
rename the Percentile field, otherwise it will appear as "MaxOfPercentile"
- Specify criteria for two fields in the TAS_Percentiles table: [DataField]
should be "Age" for the name of the field being analyzed, and the
[Value] field should be "<=[Age]"
- View the results
The query basically, gets for each record in the original table (Sample),
the corresponding largest percentile value in the TAS_Percentiles table.
Criteria is placed on the TAS_Percentiles table to make sure the data for
the correct field is used. The sort by [Age] field is optional, but clearly
shows how the records are ranked.
You can change the query to a Make-Table query (under the Query menu) to
save the results in another table.
Total Access Statistics determines calculations such as standard
deviations and confidence intervals, but does not automatically determine
outliers. Since the results are in a table, you can easily create a query
based on your definition of an outlier, and select your records by linking
our table to yours.
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