Forum Discussion
New User - Looking for best option to share Access DB front-end using MS Teams
Office 365 Cloud Based - Sharepoint, MS Teams, MS Access - Windows 11 server (not dev.).
I'm building a database in Access to store various document names and their corresponding processing instructions. I would like Team/Channel members to have permission-based access through the Teams app to be able to perform certain actions. At lowest level permissions, access means the ability to use the database through Teams to search for a given document name to retrieve the processing instructions for their level. At the highest permissions level, access means being able to make changes to select tables in the database. They may add/mod/delete the Document Names and the corresponding processing instructions.
Can someone please help me with it? I don't want to spend too much time building out the database if it can't be used as an information resource for everyone. I would be grateful for any assistance, including a point toward good information that might help a novice like me to understand how to best accomplish this?
All other users on our network (also Team members on my Channel) have the same software that I do, including those designated as Team Owners. Please let me know if any needed information is missing. Thanks in advance for your assistance!! :)
5 Replies
It occurs to me that an alternative approach to this requirement could be taken.
Your focus is on Teams and documents that can be searched through Teams. You didn't specify where those documents are stored, but it is logical to assume they could be on SharePoint.
That means a PowerApps application, running in Teams, and using SharePoint lists for the data, could be a good solution here.Yes, we are running Sharepoint. I read something about being able to use Sharepoint lists to store the data for retrieval through the user interface built in Access, but it's all new to me. I hope to be able to allow Team members to access a search form from a tab in Teams and search for document names to see the instructions for processing them.
However, if there is an easier solution, I'm certainly open to it. Thank you!
I'm afraid it's either Access or Teams, not both. Access, as I said before, runs on the desktop under Windows and doesn't have a way to incorporate Teams, nor vice versa.
I know that PowerApps, on the other hand, does run under Teams. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/teams/overview-of-the-power-apps-app
You could create your "tables" as SharePoint lists and connect a small PowerApps app to those lists to handle the data management tasks.
You could also create an Access database application linked to those same SharePoint lists for greater power and flexibility. In other words, the PA interface would support users wanting to look for documents. The Access interface, under your Team admin's Windows account on their own computer, could manage the maintenance of the document lists.
This kind of hybrid approach brings the best of both environments to the task.
I doubt there's any way to share an Access database application via Teams, let alone somehow incorporate Teams permissions into it.
Access runs on the desktop, under Windows. You can use it to manage documents in a network shared folder.
You can definitely deploy the Access database to your users for the purpose you want. You just can't merge it into Teams.
