@Michal_Bar, thanks for providing us with a glimpse of what's ahead, as well as a summary of the many Access advancements of late, in your presentation at AEK on the recent and upcoming advancements with Microsoft Access, at AEK, Access Day in Redmond, DevCon, Ignite and Netherlands / Access Amsterdam conferences.
I noticed you covered upcoming Microsoft Graph support in your AEK21 presentation. I've been interested in seeing Microsoft Graph support in Access (via or alongside general purpose OData?) ever since seeing it demoed here by Mauricio in Access User Groups last year.
I also noticed an OData connector for Microsoft Access shown there, and noted how OData was used as the provider under the hood for Dynamics and Microsoft Graph connections. Considering that, are we likely to see simplified general-purpose OData support as well soon, or can this be provided – as it opens up Access to use with all kinds of other key data sources.
However, it seems that Microsoft Graph (as well as OData) isn't currently mentioned on the official Microsoft Access (Microsoft 365) Roadmap. Can these be added to the Access Roadmap (especially considering it seems to have already been developed in part) to help increase awareness of this upcoming major enhancement?
I believe the more attention the better, when it comes to demonstrating Microsoft's continued commitment to developing new and exciting Microsoft Access features and alongside and integrating with Microsoft's rapidly growing portfolio of Azure-based offerings and other cloud services.
You have already done this to a large degree by providing much-needed support for Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce. That has been a big help, as I've see, for example, clients decide on going with a Microsoft Access in large part due to the possibility they could integrate with Salesforce (if/when their organization was to ever adopt Salesforce).
However, even just adding support for Microsoft Graph would mean that Access will be able to tap into data from a wide (and growing) range of Microsoft cloud products & services, including Mail & Calendar and Personal Contacts & Colleagues (without relying on varying Outlook client configuration, providing much-needed equivalent of direct Exchange support), Users & Groups (reducing Active Directory / Access & Identity complexity), Intune (devices), Microsoft Teams, OneNote, Excel (charts & automation), Planner (Tasks & Plans) and OneDrive (files & photos).
Similarly, simplified, general-purpose OData connection support opens up the doors to countless other cloud & web data sources (where ODBC isn't an option) – Microsoft, 3rd-party and custom – in the same way that ODBC has proved critical for enabling connections to a wide range of a other databases.
Also, will Microsoft Graph and OData connections be made available for all Office 365 editions (including Home, instead of limiting to Office 365 ProPlus like with Salesforce and Dynamics)?
Additionally, will Linked Tables which were set up with supported editions ( like Office 365 ProPlus) still be able to function on all Office 365 end-user PCs regardless of edition (so including Home edition) – or can you provide support for that – so that, for example, pro developers can rely on end-users being able to still use such databases via VPN at home the same as would from in the office?
Also, can you provide an idea of when Microsoft Graph and OData support might be available for Office Insiders?
Thanks,
Dan
