Forum Discussion
Moving Away from MS Access
I don't actually see anyone saying it is wrong to move away from Access. If anything, we're saying that doing so out of antipathy for Access is probably short-sighted. Access fills a niche that is really hard to fill otherwise.
Note that several alternatives have been suggested, including PowerApps, PowerBI, and SQL Server. I even suggested there are non-Windows approaches involving web-browser based technology.
I did succumb to the temptation to point out that asking Access developers what they should choose instead is kind of ironic. "I know you've been driving Fords for thirty years, but what do you wish you had been driving instead." "I know you like ice cream for desert, but what kind of cake should you be serving instead." See the similarity? If the question had been directed at FORMER Access developers, and had been phrased as "what kinds of advantages did you gain from choosing a different platform?" it wouldn't even have come up.
I appreciate all of the replies and suggestions. I'm not choosing to move away from Access. That decision is being made for me, so I'm left to come up with alternatives. You have given me several good ideas. Thanks everyone.
Brian_Hayes I feel your pain Brian. I also agree with your comments about all the negativity and asking for more details on what it is you want. My company uses Access very heavily, with a fairly complex Access front end that was built in house over many years, and we'd like to move away from it towards a more cloud based front end. We already us SQL Server as the back end, so enabling users to have more flexibility and the ability to us a front end that doesn't require them to remotely connected to their work computers would be helpful. We have a number of SQL Databases that we connect to and use, trying to maintain all those with an acceptable response time over a VPN via Access proved to be less than idea.
As someone else mentioned we are looking at PowerApps and I just some time looking at the Microsoft Build conference to see what the have going on there, which is a lot. But as I mentioned and maybe is your case too, we have a fairly complex front end, to have to rewrite it from scratch would be time intensive to say the least. Some way to convert it would be ideal. At least then we could have something up and running in less time.
Although I was initially luke-warm on PowerApps (at the time they were being introduced, I had just co-authored a book on Access Web Apps for Access 2013, alas). However, I was recently induced to take another look at the current state of PowerApp development. It's now possible to implement a really useful Front End for your relational database applications IF they have a non-Access Back End. In other words, if your BE is in SharePoint, SQL Server/SQL Azure, or one of the other supported data sources (lamentably not accdbs) you can have the best of both worlds, a robust desktop FE in Access and a competent mobile interface running on a smart phone, a tablet, or in a browser.
I've only done two such PA apps so far, but I'm suitably impressed.- Now I’m interested. Haven’t ever made a power app. We have a lot of financial data that is very sensitive and so we do not use the cloud. Can you use PowerApps with a SQL Server in house?
CJ_Butcher I have to say this is one of the best forum discussions I've ever read on this never ending question; how do we get away from Access. I appreciated every response immensely. I am constantly perplexed at how often businesses are unsatisfied with Access. Even with telling them how hard it is to get off of Access, they are all in denial and just want an app from the Apple/Microsoft store that does everything for them. I think it's a combination of it being a Microsoft app, that its VBA based, and that it has limitations that invites the criticality. If something this magical has limitations it just creates suspicions for some reason.
I have decided to keep the many Access front ends we have (which took over 10 years to develop) and move to SQL Server backend. Because they are linked tables its no different to the user as well as the forms. We'll be implementing PBI and SSRS eventually... and thats ok! No two businesses are the same. Just be patient. Microsoft wants all businesses to succeed and they make incredible things. Upgrading our network infrastructure fixed all of our corrupt Access files, so you may want to get that checked out. I hope you find something that works for you.
As an Access developer from it's first version, I have to agree. Moving the backend to MS SQL Server solved all problems with mdb corruption and it is now very fast. VBA is a great environment IMO, and Access makes a great front end that is easily customized. My only wish is that they would provide some sort of iOS application that could import some basic MS Access forms and have an ODBC connection to SQL included in that import.
