Update a Table Field Whenever the Record is Changed using a Data Macro in Microsoft Access

In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I will teach you how to update the date that a record was last updated using a data macro. This runs at the table level. Use them sparingly, but they can be useful.

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access 2016, access 2019, access 2021, access 365, microsoft access, ms access, ms access tutorial, #msaccess, #microsoftaccess, #help, #howto, #tutorial, #learn, #lesson, #training, #database, #fasttips, data macro, last updated, trigger, before change, update date when record changed

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Please feel free to post your questions or comments below. Thanks.

[christophermatthews]

I went a step beyond this by creating a macro to track when a particular field in a table has changed. I created a child table to record the date the change was made to the field and to record the old field value. This worked fine for a while but my parent table eventually became corrupted. The fields that I was tracking changings too in the parent table were getting corrupted with special characters and different language characters. I disabled the macros and had to replace the parent table from backup data. I'm not 100% sure the macros were to blame but I haven't had any further corruption of data since. I had no idea that table level macros were so risky. Thanks for pointing that out in the video.

[johnpap]

That was perfect. Exactly what i was looking for. Thank you!

[Jojosmith]

Great teacher as all time Richard. Thanks a lot for your valuable lesson

[ssdusd]

If you have split database, Where should it be placed? FE BE? Or both are work?

[Jojosmith]

all thumbs up for the valuable lessons as always. Thanks a lot Richard for your hard work 👍

[garrettmichael]

Thank you, I’m such a fan of your videos! Does this work with a split fe be? If so, do we do the macro on the be?

[luzkrg]

Awesome!!! 🤩 Wonder if it’ll work with an Environ(“Username”)

[kamleshjain]

Lovely.... Never knew such things exist

[khalidalanazi]

How I can save the attachment on shared folder on the access

The "LastUpdated" field is also filled with the current date and time when the record is created (= not changed). How to solve this?