How to Use Smart Tags in Microsoft Access 2010

Synopsis: Learn about how to use smart tags in Microsoft Access 2010. Smart Tags were introduced in Access 2003 as a simple way of connecting simple functionality to a field in a database table with a minimum of effort.

Many databases contain fields and types of fields that occur very frequently in a whole range of applications.  Let’s give an example if a database contains information about people, the chances are that within the information relating to people,  there’s a field for the email address.

Where there is a common type of information it’s possible to attach some common types of functionality using Access 2010.  This can remove the need to develop this functionality as part of the database.

To see how this works. Let’s suppose that we want a simple facility to send an email to one of the students in our database.  We know that the table tblStudents contains a field to store a student’s email address.

Open the database, and then open the student table in datasheet view to see what sort of information it contains.

You can see the E-mail address field, and almost every student has an email address.

Now switch to Design View and select E-Mail Address in the list of fields.

At the bottom of the screen, you can see that one of the properties on the General tab is Smart Tags.

Click there and you will see the Build button on the lower right.

Click the Build button and the Action Tags dialog appears.

By default there are five Action Tags (an alternative name for Smart Tags) available, and for each of these there is a choice of available actions.  The actions for each tag are listed in the panel at the bottom.  So, for example, the actions for a Date Action Tag are “Schedule a Meeting” and “Show my Calendar”.

Let’s select the Action Tag Person Name and check it.

If we attach a Person Name Action Tag to a field, there are four available actions and one of them is “Send Mail”.

Click OK.

The Smart Tags property of this field now contains a code that indicates the use of the Person Name Smart Tag.

Now return to Datasheet View.  You’ll need to save the changes to the tblStudents table, of course.

Notice that each cell in the E-mail Address column has a small triangle in the bottom right hand corner.  This indicates the presence of a Smart Tag.

Now hover the cursor over the E-mail Address field for any of the students and you will see an Information icon appear, as shown here.  The screen tip says Smart Tag Actions.

Click the dropdown arrow next to the icon and the list of available actions appears.

You can see the four actions that are available for the Smart Tag we selected.

Select Send Email.

Access 2010 causes a new email to be created using my default email client (MS Outlook) and with the addressee set at the E-Mail Address of the selected student.  I can now type the email and send it.

Note that if I had selected Schedule a Meeting an Outlook appointment would have been created and an invitation prepared for the selected student.

You can see how the use of Smart Tags gives you access to routine functionality with just a few clicks.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!