![]() ![]() And for better or worse, we saw all manner of spreadsheet disasters, spaghetti formulas, dangerous code and, ultimately, time-wasting as users fumble around with functions and arrays and charts and macros and VBA one well-known Australian entrepreneur even banned spreadsheets when confronted with a financial statement full of errors (I'd have banned the developer).Īnd then came desktop GIS, and now everyone can make maps and justify the cost of gigabytes of data splattered across disks and network drives. In the 80's we also saw the proliferation of desktop spreadsheets, and everyone became a data analyst. copy 9999) scattered across drives and folders. Then in the '80s' along comes desktop word processing, and suddenly everyone's a typist hacking together templates and keyboard shortcuts and functions and generating versions with every tiny edit (.copy 1. There was a time when typing was done by trained typists, when data analysis was conducted by data analysts and mapping was done by cartographers. But, the emergence of Access follows a trend that emerged in the '90's that placed the then amazing power of desktop solutions in the hands of the untrained. So why do they think this?Īccess is great for rapid app development, it's robust in the hands of experience programmers (and knowledgeable users), is easily accessible via ODBC/OLEDB, has massive community support and above all else, solves business problems. In my 30+ years of using Access (as both a tertiary trained scientist and tertiary trained programmer), I find that much of the criticism and disparaging commentary about Access comes from IT staff who say it's not a 'proper' application. The Access user base is far too well established, and organizations too deeply rusted on to Access/Office, to ever see it discontinued. In between are varying levels of complexity and sophistication that probably would astound the naïve observer who doesn't know that much about the power of Access and VBA. However, competent Access developers have been creating enterprise level applications with Access interfaces to SQL Server, Oracle, MySQl, etc. ![]() True, you can build simplistic applications with a single table, one or two forms and reports and macros. My point is that Dataverse doesn't necessarily open that up, so much as it strengthens the partnership which has already been there for a while.Īnd finally, I am leery of the "low code/no code" tag being attached to Access in this context. One of them I use every day, others are for POC types of applications and a YouTube series I'm working on. My only reservation is that I've been creating hybrid Access/PowerApps applications with SharePoint and SQL Azure back ends for a while now. towards the Power Platform environment, suggests a recognition that this is one area in which Access can be substantially improved. The fact that it is in a new direction, i.e. The commitment to Access is obvious and substantial. I agree with that almost 100%, with one small reservation. I have been describing this for years as "Access for the Web" since it seems clear to be the future platform for MS in terms of 'citizen developers' but I think the recent integration of Access into this platform is recognizing there is a huge install base of Access and large commitment from companies that have found it fits a great niche for small to mid sided Rohde Now, if I were to make a recommendation for new development for a team I would probably look at Power Apps rather than Access. It is objectively easier to learn Access and VBA than it is to learn C# for 'non-programmers' and that make the tool easier to build applications for smaller teams.īy integrating with the Dataverse as a back-end database you can continue to use Access as a front end for desktop forms entry but also give a transition plan for migration to Power Platform if you need mobile capabilities or interaction with other applications via Power Automate and Power Apps. The way I view Access and it appears that MS does as well, is that it remains a solid tool for community developers to build desktop data-centered applications. The biggest enhancement of a Dataverse connector shows a place for access among the Power Platform suite. Think the recent announcements at Ignite show an on-going commitment to Access. ![]()
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