Step-

by-
step
Tr
aini
ngManual

Engl
ishVer
sion

I
nfor
mat
ion& Communi
cati
on
Technol
ogy(I
CT)
 OpenOffice Base

CONTENT
LESSON PAGE
Lesson 1: Introduction 2
1.1 What is database? 2
1.2 What is table? 2

Lesson 2: Getting Started 4

2.1 Getting Started with OpenOffice Base 4
2.2 Saving a base file 7

Lesson 3: Creating and Linking Tables 8

3.1 Creating Tables 8
3.2 Keys in Database 11

Lesson 4: Creating Forms 12

4.1 Create Form in Design View 12
4.2 Inserting Labels and Text Boxes 13
4.3 Inserting Combo Boxes 14
4.4 Adding Buttons in Form 17
4.5 Inserting Data through Form 18
4.6 Using Wizard to Create Form 19

Lesson 5: Creating Query 23

5.1 Creating View 23
5.2 Creating Query 25

Lesson 6: Creating Report 32

6.1 Creating Report with Wizard 32

Lesson 7: Exercise 36

[AUTHOR NAME] 1
 OpenOffice Base

Lesson 1: Introduction
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Understand what is database and table in database concept

b. Understand the type of data and its usage.

1.1 What is database?

Database is the collection of information that had been organized so that it can be easily
access, manage and update. Databases can be classified according to types of content
such as bibliographic, full text, images and even numeric.

1.2 What is table?

Relational database are created by one or more tables that contain the information in an
organized form.

 Data Type
o There are different data types used in creating database with selected software.
Following are some of the data type prepared by OpenOffice Base:
o Boolean
 Range: 0 or 1 (True or False)
o Integer
 Integer can come in different names in OOBase. TINYINT have range from 0
to 255. SMALLINT have range of -215 to 215-1. INTEGER have range of -231 to
231-1. BIGINT have range of -263 to 263-1.
o Float
 4-bytes single precision float (Format: 1500.00)
o Double
 8-bytes double precision float (Format: 750000.00)
o Text
 There are different name in text, in which are LONGVARCHAR for a lot of
text. CHAR stores exactly the number of characters specified by user.
VARCHAR stores up to the specified number of characters, same as
LONGVARCHAR

[AUTHOR NAME] 2
 OpenOffice Base

o Date
 Stores month, day and year information (Format: 1/1/99 to 1/1/9999)
o Time
 Stores hour, minute and second info (Format: Seconds since 1/1/1970)
o Timestamp
 Stores date and time information

[AUTHOR NAME] 3
 OpenOffice Base

Lesson 2: Getting Started

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Open and use Base application in OpenOffice application

b. Create and saving a Base file in OpenOffice Base (OOB).

2.1 Getting started with OpenOffice Base

Double click on the Open Office icon on the Windows desktop or you can click on the Start
button in the lower left corner of the screen, then click on Programs and click on Open Office
icon.

OR

The Open Office application will appear as image below:

When you open an Open Office application, you will be presented with all applications that
are links to Open Office, such as Writer, Draw, Sheet and so on.

[AUTHOR NAME] 4
 OpenOffice Base

Click on to open the OpenOffice Base. A wizard will appear to assist in creating
a new database.

Choose Create a new database as follow:

Explanation on each selections:

Create a new database

Select this if you wanted to create a new database. This option uses HSQL (Hyper Structured
Query Language) database with default settings.
Open an existing database file
Choose this if you wanted to open the database file that you had saved previously.
Connecting to an existing database
Choose this if you wanted to create a database document for an existing database
connection.

[AUTHOR NAME] 5
 OpenOffice Base

Click Next and choose the setting that is suitable for the use of database:

Explanation on each selections:

Yes, register the Database for me

Select to register the database within your copy from OpenOffice. After registered, the
database is displayed in the View – Data Source window. You must register a database to
be able to insert the database fields in a document (Insert – Fields – Other) or in a mail
merge.
No, do not register the database
Choose this to keep the information of the database within the created database file.

Tick Open the database for editing if you wanted to display the database file and can edit
the structure of the database. Tick Create tables using the table wizard if you wanted to call
the Table Wizard after the Database Wizard is finished.

[AUTHOR NAME] 6
 OpenOffice Base

2.2 Saving a base file

Following window will appear after the Finish button is clicked:

Save as StudentDatabase and click Save.

The following screen is appeared as below:

[AUTHOR NAME] 7
 OpenOffice Base

Lesson 3: Creating & Linking Tables

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Creating tables in OOB to start of simple database functions

b. Understand the concept of keys in database.
c. Differentiate the primary key and foreign key.

3.1 Creating Tables

In OOBase, you can add and design your table by clicking the following button:

You can then choose either one selection

to continue with creating a table.

Let’s create our first table by using Create Table in Design View.

[AUTHOR NAME] 8
 OpenOffice Base

Field Name Field Type Entry required Length Format Example

StudentID Text[VARCHAR] Yes 5
StudentName Text[VARCHAR] Yes 255
StudentIC Integer [INTEGER] Yes 10 000000-00-0000
UniformUnit Text[VARCHAR] Yes 255
AcademicClub Text[VARCHAR] Yes 255
GamesClub Text[VARCHAR] Yes 255
ClassID Text[VARCHAR] Yes 5

Let’s declare StudentID as primary keys in this table.

Click Save to save the table created as Student Table.

Now that we have a Student Table, we wanted to create another table named Class. For
Class Table, we are going to create it with Use wizard to create table.

Step 1: Select Personal and find

Sample tables of Categories.
From Available fields, click >> to
move all into Selected fields. Click
Next to set types and formats of
fields.

[AUTHOR NAME] 9
 OpenOffice Base

Step 2: Change CategoryID to

ClassID in Field name and the
type to Text [VARCHAR]. Set Entry
required to Yes and put 5 as
length.

For CategoryName to
ClassName and type change to
Text [VARCHAR]. Set Entry
required to Yes and put 50 as
length.

Step 3: Click Next and select Use

an existing field as a primary key
and choose ClassID as your
primary key. Click Next.

Step 4: Name your table to Class

and click Finish.

[AUTHOR NAME] 10
 OpenOffice Base

3.2 Keys in Database

To link tables, we must use the primary key for each table so that it can be used as foreign key
in other tables.

What is primary key (PK)?

Primary key is a special database table column that is designated to uniquely identify all table
records. Main features of primary keys are:

a. It must contain a unique value for each row of data

b. It cannot contain null (empty) value.

What is foreign key (FK)?

Foreign key is a field where in one table it is uniquely identifies a row in another table. In simply,
foreign key is defined in the second table, but refers as primary key at its own table.

Let’s say we had 2 different tables, Student and Class table.

Student Table Class Table

StudentID (PK) ClassID (PK)
StudentName ClassName
ClassID (FK)

ClassID is a primary key in table Class but act as foreign key in table Student.

From Student table, search for ClassID and drag it to ClassID in Class table:

You will see the linkage of Student

table with Class table with the
present of ClassID in both table.

Make sure it is connected to each

other so that your query later will be
easily done.

[AUTHOR NAME] 11
 OpenOffice Base

Lesson 4: Creating Forms

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Creating forms in two different ways.

b. Inserting labels, text boxes, and buttons and combo boxes in forms.
c. Inserting data into database through created forms.

4.1 Create Form in Design View

By using this function, we are creating a form by specifying the record source, controls and
control properties.

Click on Create Form in Design View and following window will appear:

[AUTHOR NAME] 12
 OpenOffice Base

You are free to create a form that is easy for users to key in the information needed. By using
the previous tables created, let’s create a simple form.

4.2 Inserting Labels and Text Boxes

Click on Text Box and drag a box on the screen to create a text box for data entry.

Next, right click on the text box created and select Form.

Select Data tab and select

Content type as Table and
Content is the table you
wanted to collaborate. In this
case, Student Table.

Next, right click on the text box and select Control.

From Control, properties for

text box will appear, this time,
go to Data tab and look at
Data Field. Choose which
data field you wanted to
keep your data into.

In this case, we keep our data

into StudentID field.

[AUTHOR NAME] 13
 OpenOffice Base

To make our form look decent, we can create something simple like the following:

To add label for instruction, click on icon

and place the label as your favor. You just have
to change the Name and Label for that
Text Box
particular label.

Label

4.3 Inserting Combo Boxes

Combo Boxes give users the list of previous data set. To create a combo box, we must ensure

that the Wizard in form design is on. Highlighted icon means it is in mode on. After

labelling our combo box, we select the combo box icon and drag next to label created
earlier as follow:

Wizard box will appear and we are needed to key in

the data inside step by step.

Steps are as follow.

Step 1: Select the table where you wanted

your data field be saved. In this case, our
Student Table.

Click Next.

[AUTHOR NAME] 14
 OpenOffice Base

Step 2: Select the field where you wanted

your data saved. In this case, select
UniformUnit as we wanted anything typed
and saved can be retrieved in this
particular field.

Click Next.

Step 3: Select Yes, I want to save it in the

following database field: UniformUnit.

Click Finish.

Repeat steps for AcademicClub and GamesClubs.

Modify the form as below:

[AUTHOR NAME] 15
 OpenOffice Base

Class ID will be referring to another table: Class table.

To ensure that class are selected as per setup, we need to

fill in the information in Class table.

Go to table tab and select Class, double-click and it will

open a new datasheet.

Key in the following information:

When these information are recorded and saved, we can

then use it when filling in information in the form as below:

[AUTHOR NAME] 16
 OpenOffice Base

4.4 Adding Buttons in Form

Adding buttons can make the form looks professional. To add buttons into a form, we need to

make sure the wizard button is activated.

Choose a button icon and drag a small button where you wanted your button is located.
By selected the created button, right-click and select Control.

Properties: Push Button window will appear and change the information as below:

New Button
Name : NewButton
Label : New
Action : New Record
Delete Button
Name : DelButton
Label : Delete
Action : Delete Record
Previous Button
Name : PrevButton
Label : <<
Action : Previous Record
Next Button
Name : NextButton
Label : >>
Action : Next Record

Button can be added as long as you are aware with what functions you wanted it to
possessed.

*Tips: Too many buttons in one form can cause confusion to your end-user. Make it simple and
organized.

[AUTHOR NAME] 17
 OpenOffice Base

4.5 Inserting Data through Form

To insert data through form, we just need to select the Form tab and choose the created form:
Student Data. Double click and you can start editing.

Fill in the following information:

Student Student Name Student IC Class Uniformed Academic Games Club

ID ID Unit Club
A002 Andrew 990301125055 4A Scout English Chess
B001 Bryan 980505126043 5A PBSM Mathematics IT
B002 Bakar 990803125033 4B KRS Science Chess
C001 Charlie 980616125177 5B PBSM Mathematics IT
C002 Connie 980607126022 5A Scout English Chess
D001 Daud 990711121107 4A Scout English Board Game

When finished, you can check your Student Table and see all the data are inserted.

[AUTHOR NAME] 18
 OpenOffice Base

4.6 Using Wizard to Create Form

Other than using the Design View, we can simple create a Form by wizard. Let’s do a Form for
Class table in case there are some addition of data to the table.

Steps are as follow:

At the Form tab, select Use Wizard to Create Form.

This will open a new window of Database Form
but this time, with a wizard window.

There are 8 (including creating subform) steps in creating Form by wizard. Follow through the
step-by-step.

[AUTHOR NAME] 19
 OpenOffice Base

Step 1: Choose the table or Query you

wanted to create form of. Select the

wanted field and click on the

button.

In this case, select ClassID and

ClassName field.

Click Next.

Step 2: Select which field you wanted it to

be a subform.

Since we have only 2 fields in this table, we

might as well skip this step.

Click Next.

Step 3: Choose the way you wanted your

form look like. In this case, we choose the
default setting where it is in tabulated
form.

Click Next.

[AUTHOR NAME] 20
 OpenOffice Base

Step 4: In this step, we wanted to set data

entry. The form can be set to only entering
data and the entered data will not be
shown.

We wanted to set the form for data

entering and displaying. You may also
choose come restrictions to the data.

Click Next after modification.

Step 5: Choose the style and field border

that suit your taste and click Next.

Step 6: Name the form you are creating

and select Work with the form to initiate
data insertion or select Modify the form to
modify the arrangement of the form
manually.

Click Finish.

[AUTHOR NAME] 21
 OpenOffice Base

Following result should be appeared:

[AUTHOR NAME] 22
 OpenOffice Base

Lesson 5: Creating Query

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Creating views and queries in OOB.

b. Creating queries in three different ways.
c. Displaying necessary information in OOB through query.

5.1 Creating View

View is created to specify what tables you wanted to show. This can be used to combine data
from different tables and show it in one single table.

To create a view in OOBase, go to Table tab and select . The following screen
will appear:

Add Tables window will appear alongside. If the window does not show, you can find it on top

of the menu with this icon, . Add both tables that we have so that we can linked the tables
together for easy access on the view.

[AUTHOR NAME] 23
 OpenOffice Base

From the Class Table, choose ClassID

and drag your mouse across to the
ClassID at Student Table.

This is declaring ClassID to be a foreign

key at Student Table.

Any data changes in Class table

regarding the ClassID will be updated
to the Student Table directly.

Now, we will choose the field where we wanted to show only some of the data, fill in the lower
part of the information as below:

Click Save to save the view as one of the table.

[AUTHOR NAME] 24
 OpenOffice Base

Click OK and you will see your table is added into the Database:

5.2 Creating Query

A database query is designed to retrieve specific results from a database. The query is
formulated by the user following predefined formats. After searching through the data,
information relevant to the query is filtered out of the data collection and reported to the user.

In OOBase, there are three ways to creating a query.

5.2.1 Creating Query in Design View

Go to Query tab, select Create Query in Design

View.

[AUTHOR NAME] 25
 OpenOffice Base

A window will appear as follow:

Since we had already have a table for StudentInfo created

previously with View, let’s create a query based on that. Add
StudentInfo into the Query.

Since all of the needed field had already been selected, it is easy
for us to just select StudentInfo.* as selecting all fields in the table.

StudentInfo includes the student’s name, which class he/she from,

uniform club he/she’s in, what academic class he/she had and
which games club he/she’s in.

Click button, and name your Query as Query: Student Info.

You will see your query is listed as .

[AUTHOR NAME] 26
 OpenOffice Base

Double click to open the Query and you will see the following window:

5.2.2 Creating Query by Using Wizard

To use wizard in creating, with the Query tab selected, click on Use Wizard to Create Query to
open a wizard window to create query.

The following wizard will pop-out:

[AUTHOR NAME] 27
 OpenOffice Base

Step 1: Choose which table you would wanted to extract the information from. In this case,
we will choose Student Table as our source.

Step 2: Select the wanted fields to be shown in query later on. This case, we will choose
StudentName, Uniform, Academic, and Games.

Step 3: Click on Next until this step below

Edit the Alias same as above and click on

Next.

Step 4: Name your query.

Click Finish.

You will see a window appear like this:

[AUTHOR NAME] 28
 OpenOffice Base

5.2.3 Create Query in SQL View

To use this, you will need to know a simple instructions or commands used in database,
preferably SQL (Structured Query Language). Basic commands are SELECT, UPDATE and
DELETE. Let’s compute some command to create a simple query to our database.

With the Query tab selected, click on Create Query in SQL View:

The following window will appear:

[AUTHOR NAME] 29
 OpenOffice Base

Fill in the window with following commands:

This will produce a query where we have information about student’s IDs, names, IC number

and their own associated class. Click to save the query as Student and Class Info.

You will then have a listed query as follow:

Double click to open Student and Class Info, you will see the following results:

[AUTHOR NAME] 30
 OpenOffice Base

Let’s add some data into our Student Table and see if it will affect our query as well. Go to
Form tab and double click on Student Data Form to insert two new data:

Student Student Name Student IC Class Uniformed Academic Games Club

ID ID Unit Club
E001 Ezron 991223125021 3B KRS Science Board Game
F002 Fatin 991025125066 3A KRS Mathematics Board Game

After adding above data into Student Data Form, go to Query tab and double click on
Student and Class Info, you should see something like this:

Additional two new data will be updated automatically in query.

[AUTHOR NAME] 31
 OpenOffice Base

Lesson 6: Creating Report

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Creating report through wizard.

b. Displaying report after saving.

6.1 Creating Report with Wizard

To create a report, go to Report tab and select Use

Wizard to Create Report and follow the instructions by the
wizard.

By clicking on it, you can see the following screens appeared:

In this lesson, we are going to create a report for Student Info where we wanted to know the
students’ name, which class he/she’s in, what are the uniform units, academic clubs and
games club he/she’s in.

[AUTHOR NAME] 32
 OpenOffice Base

Step 1: Choose Table: Student Info as our

sources and select all available fields and
transfer it into fields in report and click Next.
Bear in mind the fields with binary cannot be
displayed in the report.

Step 2: Labeling the fields are easy. Remember

that what you labelled will be displayed in your
report.

Click Next > to proceed to the next step.

Step 3: In grouping, we just need to skip the

step because we have only small database
here, there is no need for us to group it for easy
review.

Click Next > to continue.

[AUTHOR NAME] 33
 OpenOffice Base

Step 4: Sort the data as accordance for your

easy review. In this case, we are going to sort
ClassName ascendingly.

Click Next > to proceed.

Step 5: Choose the layout as you preferred it

will be. You may as well provide the orientation
of the report as you want.

Click Next > to the next step.

Step 6: Create the report by saving it as

Student Info Report and click Finish.

[AUTHOR NAME] 34
 OpenOffice Base

After it is saved, the software will automatically pop-out the finished report as below:

[AUTHOR NAME] 35
 OpenOffice Base

Lesson 7: Exercise

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Create a simple hotel database.

b. Reviewing all lessons from Lesson 1 to Lesson 6.

In this exercise, we are going to create a simple hotel database. Let’s name our hotel as Hotel
Berjaya. In Hotel Berjaya, we will want to create an Employee table to store all information of
the hotel’s staff.

Create the following table:

Employee Table
Field Name Field Type Entry required Length
Employee# (PK) Integer [INTEGER] Yes 10
FirstName Text [VARCHAR] Yes 50
LastName Text [VARCHAR] No 50
Title Text [VARCHAR] Yes 50

[AUTHOR NAME] 36
 OpenOffice Base

Create the following records:

Employee# FirstName LastName Title

10001 Sarjaan Fernandes General Manager
10002 Dolores Wright Intern
10003 Ji Yong Kwon Account Executive
10004 May Woo Shift Manager
10005 Aliyuddin Mustafa Account Assistant
10006 Peggy Thompson IT Manager

Finished with the Employee table, we are going to create a table for us to keep our customers’
information. Let’s name our table as Customer table.

Customer Table
Field Name Field Type Entry required Length
Customer# (PK) Integer [INTEGER] Yes 5
FirstName Text [VARCHAR] Yes 50
LastName Text [VARCHAR] Yes 50
Phone# Decimal [DECIMAL] Yes 10
EmergencyName Text [VARCHAR] No 50
EmergencyPhone Decimal [DECIMAL] No 10

[AUTHOR NAME] 37
 OpenOffice Base

Create the following records:

Customer# FirstName LastName Phone# EmergencyName EmergencyPhone

30001 Veronica Carney 0109308186 Spencer 0109308187
30002 Horatio Caine 0179887211 Cindy 0179743797
30101 Azwan Kamal 0139871120 Porter 0134751124
30102 Connie Kong 0125213317 Albert 0128751134
30601 Brian Raymond 0168197894 Grace 0167439120

Done with Customer table, we are now headed in creating Room table.

Room Table
Field Name Field Type Entry required Length
Room# Integer [INTEGER] Yes 5
RoomType Text [VARCHAR] Yes 20
BedType Text [VARCHAR] No 10
Rate Float [FLOAT] Yes 10

[AUTHOR NAME] 38
 OpenOffice Base

Create the following records:

Room# RoomType BedType Rate

101 Bedroom Queen 85.95
102 Bedroom Double 92.50
201 Studio Double 112.50
202 Studio King 124.95
301 Conference 725.00
302 Conference 500.00

Create the following table (Room Assignment):

Includes: Employee#, Customer#, Room#, Rate in the table too. Refer to previous tables.

Room Assignment
Field Name Field Type Entry required Length Format
Account# Integer [INTEGER] Yes 10
DateOccupied Date [DATE] 01/01/00
Notes Text [VARCHAR] No 20000

Create relationship between the tables by going to Tools > Relationship.

[AUTHOR NAME] 39
 OpenOffice Base

Create a query according to the form below:

Date
Account# Notes Employee# Customer# Room# Rate
Occupied
5272 01/11/16 Smoking Area 10001 30001 101 85.95
5510 05/11/16 Non-Smoke Area 10006 30002 302 500.00
6028 16/11/16 Honeymoon 10005 30601 202 124.95
4260 26/11/16 Smoking Area 10003 30102 302 725.00

[AUTHOR NAME] 40
 OpenOffice Base

Create a query that shows the Customer#, customer’s first name, the room’s type and who is
the employee’s first name in charge of its room assignment.

Then, create a report for the query created previously.

[AUTHOR NAME] 41