You use smart tags to perform tasks that you'd usually open other applications to perform. For example, you can use smart tags to schedule an appointment, email a letter, or add an Outlook contact, all based on data stored in an Access table, or found in an Access query result. Taking things a step further, you can even determine the weather, or get the latest news on each city that appears in the result of an Access query!
It's extremely simple to add a smart tag to an Access query. Here are the steps involved:
Create a new query, or open an existing query in Design view.
Select the field on which you want to base the smart tag. For example, if you want to use the smart tag to schedule an appointment, you would probably want to select the contact name field.
Show the Field properties for the field and click within the Smart Tags property (see Figure 4.39).
Click the Build button (the ellipsis). The Smart Tags dialog appears (see Figure 4.40).
Click to select the smart tag you want to add. For example, to send mail, schedule a meeting, open an existing contact, and add new contacts, select Person Name.
Click OK. A smart tag appears in the Smart Tags property (see Figure 4.41).
After you have added a smart tag to a query, you will notice smart tag action buttons when you run the query (see Figure 4.42). Click the action button for a particular cell in the query result to see the actions available for that smart tag. In Figure 4.43 you can see that the Person Name smart tag has the Send Mail, Schedule a Meeting, Open Contact, and Add to Contacts menu items all associated with it. Figure 4.44 shows the result of selecting the Add to Contacts menu item.
Although the standard smart tags are interesting and exciting, you will find them so useful that after awhile you will be yearning for more. Fortunately, additional smart tags are available. Here's the process for obtaining additional smart tags created by Microsoft, third-party vendors, or other information technology (IT) professionals:
Create a new query, or open an existing query in Design view.
Select the field on which you want to base the smart tag.
Show the Field properties for the field and click within the Smart Tags property.
Click the Build button (the ellipsis). The Smart Tags dialog appears.
Click More Smart Tags. This launches Internet Explorer (see Figure 4.45).
Select between Communication Services, Reference, and News & Travel (for this example, select News & Travel). The News and Travel page appears (see Figure 4.46).
Select MSNBC, ESPN, or Find Other Great Smart Tags. For this example, select MSNBC. The download page appears (see Figure 4.47).
Read the download information, and when you are ready, click Download.
After the download process completes, you will need to exit and restart Microsoft Office Access 2003. The smart tag will then be available.
The Local News on MSNBC.com smart tag appears in the Smart Tags dialog (see Figure 4.48).
The smart tag menu appears in Figure 4.49. If you attempt to get weather, top stories, or sports for a top U.S. city (such as Los Angeles), you will launch Internet Explorer and receive the appropriate information.