Office 365 Home Online Database?

So I inherited a lot of family mementos after my mom’s passing years ago. So I want to catalog the items package them up and put them into storage. I would like to make some kind of database so that it can be shared with family who can then search the database and find items they might want to lay claim to or provide history about the item.

So I started a Microsoft Access database to do this. However, it looks like Microsoft has given up on Access and it’s on its way out. Or at least there is no Online Office 365 version. So I would like to create a database where I can log the items name, location (storage box), include an image. I would like to build it in my Office 365 (University) or equivalent to Home version for easy sharing. I already share a lot of family photos this way. Any suggestion on what to do.

What would you create to do this?

Any help is much appreciated.

Conversation 5 comments

  • TheJoeFin

    Premium Member
    28 March, 2018 - 4:30 pm

    <p>I know this isn't a database, but a shared OneNote notebook might work well for organizing and cataloging. Also OneNote will OCR text in images making it easy to find what you want. You could set up page templates which makes it easy to keep a uniform page layout. </p>

  • BigM72

    29 March, 2018 - 7:39 am

    <p>Create a spreadsheet table?</p><p>The photos column, you put a link to the relevant photo rather than the photo itself.</p>

  • gregsedwards

    Premium Member
    29 March, 2018 - 2:44 pm

    <p>I agree with the suggestions that Excel and OneNote, in particular, could make a flexible and highly searchable kind of database for content. The biggest issue with OneNote may be that it's too flexible. There's no schema to ensure a consistency of information from one item to the next. Like TheJoeFin said, there are some ways to kind of get around that, including using page templates, but they won't restrict you from adding information in a non-uniform way. Just realize that a conventional database isn't really OneNote's intended purpose.</p><p><br></p><p>You could just use OneDrive/Photos and add a little metadata <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">to each image</span>, either through the image's caption ("A painting of some fruit, box 23") or tags (#fruit #painting #box23), that holds the extra stuff you want to know about it. You could then search on that. And OneDrive folders are inherently shareable.</p>

  • offTheRecord

    29 March, 2018 - 3:27 pm

    <p>A search for "home inventory template" mostly turns up spreadsheet templates for Excel. Depending on how many items you're looking at, this is probably the most straightforward way to go — creating a full-on database may be overkill. You can put the spreadsheet online and give other family members access to it. You could do this with Google Sheets, too.</p>

  • Nic

    Premium Member
    30 March, 2018 - 3:48 pm

    <p>Other option might be a SQL express local database that you could share to folks.</p>

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