Category Archives: Access 2016

5 Unconventional Ways Microsoft Access Can Power Your Business

Posted on December 10, 2015 by admin

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Since it’s inception, Microsoft Access has been the go-to database for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Not surprisingly, as Access’s features and cloud capability have rapidly expanded over the years, so too have the different ways the technology is used. Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Employee Training

There are few things more valuable to a business than properly onboarding and training new employees. While for most companies the ROI on hiring and app developer for a training application wouldn’t be high enough to justify the cost, building them in house is an appealing option. And as the company’s hiring scales, moving the backend of the app to a server like Microsoft SQL Server will be a low-cost way to scale your training app with it.

2. Customer Relationship Management

For many small businesses, CRMs like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics are either too expensive or too cumbersome to implement. However, having accurate, up-to-date customer and prospect information is crucial to running client-facing departments . As an MS Access user, it’s more than likely that much of this data already exists there. By standardizing this information and creating relational tables for objects like leads and deals, you too can have a CRM without the cost and learning curve.

3. Displaying Access to Data

While we’re on the subject of prospects and customers, many of them will want to access some of the data that you store in your web database – for example, recent invoices or the date of their next appointment. You can easily deliver this data easily by offering them a form they can fill out on your site. ASP.NET forms can query a Microsoft Access online database directly, so by implementing them on your site, you can surface this data to your customers with limited effort from your developers.

4. Business Intelligence

If you’re like many, you’re using an endless string of VLOOKUPs in Excel to report on related data from different tables or sources. This is really a job for Microsoft Access’ relational tables. Built on top of Microsoft’s Jet Database Engine, you can use these powerful tools to easily create queries that quite literally fly.

5. Development Waterfalls

If you’re in software development, one common practice you’re likely familiar with is creating waterfall models to manage the progress of an application. Since you may be creating an application that leverages Access or SQL Servers as your backend, why not keep track of your app’s progress there as well?

These are just a few of many ideas for uses for MS Access – the beauty of the software is that it’s uses are really only limited to the imagination<.

Posted in Access 2010, Access 2013, Access 2016, Access Developer, blog, SQL Hosting, SQL Server 2012 | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

What’s new in MS Access 2016…not too much

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Mike

Microsoft did not bite off any major changes between Access 2013 and 2016. Nothing major changed (like the move from Web Databases to Web Apps from 2010 to 2013) and there are mostly just some enhancements and more robust design options.  Here are some of the features outlines by Microsoft:

Do things quickly with Tell Me

You’ll notice a text box on the ribbon in Access 2016 that says Tell me what you want to do. This is a text field where you can enter words and phrases related to what you want to do next and quickly get to features you want to use or actions you want to perform. You can also choose to get help related to what you’re looking for.

tellme msaccess2016

Can’t find a button? Click inside the Tell Me box (it’s the box at the top, with the light bulb). Type a button or command, like “filter”, and you’ll see all of your filter-related options listed for you.

Keep in mind that the the Tell Me box is not available in the ribbon when designing Access web apps.

Export linked data source information to Excel

Have you ever wanted to get a nice list of all the linked data sources from your Access database application into MS Excel? If you are working on a complex Access application, for example, that includes links to many different data sources, it can be helpful to have a nice list of all the various data sources and their types. This exported list can be especially helpful if you are working on an Access application you did not originally design. Now with Access 2016, you’ll find this task much easier using new functionality built into the Linked Table Manager dialog.

export to excel

Open the Linked Table Manager dialog by clicking External Data > Linked Table Manager. Select the linked data sources you want to list and then click Export to Excel.

Once again, please note that this feature is not available when designing Access Web Apps.  Are you seeing a trend here?

Larger Show Table dialog

In Access 2016, the default height of the Show Table dialog has been increased so you can easily see more table and query names in your database.

larger table view

To view the Show Table dialog in queries, click Create > Query Design. The Show Table dialog opens by default. You can also open this dialog in queries by clicking Design > Show Table. To view the Show Table dialog in the Relationships window, click Database Tools > Relationships. The Show Table dialog opens by default. You can also open this dialog in the Relationship window by clicking Design > Show Table.

Once again, please note that the Relationships window is not available in Access web apps.

New visual themes and templates for the Access program

As mentioned a lot of the improvements to Access 2013 come to aesthetics.  There are now two Office themes that you can apply to the Access program: Colorful and White. To access these themes, go to File > Options > General, and then click the drop down menu next to Office Theme.

assets database template

If you want to organize and manage your data with Access but you’d like some help getting started with designing the database, try using a desktop database template. In Access 2016, five of the most popular database templates have been redesigned to have a more modern look and feel. To try these templates out yourself, go to File > New, and then search for any of these:

  • Desktop Assets
  • Desktop Contacts
  • Desktop Events
  • Desktop Students
  • Desktop Tasks

Each of these templates includes a new Getting Started form with links to articles, videos, and other community resources.

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