How to use MS Word mailmerge + Access in the cloud?

[corpomax]

Hello all,

We are four (soon 5) employees who are working on premises.

Current Situation

We have:

- One Dell Server (#1), used only to host documents (Word, Excel, PDF, JPG, etc.)
- One Dell Server (#2), used to host Quickbooks files + acting as a backup server for server #1
- Four Dell desktop computers (Windows 10 Pro), connected to both servers via local network,
- Two Dell 24" monitors per computer
- One laser printer per computer (wired)
- One ScanSnap scanner per computer (wired)

On a daily basis, we use the following software apps:

- Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, and Access)
- Quickbooks Pro 2021 (desktop edition)
- Chrome, Firefox and Edge
- Gmail Workspace (for all our daily emails)
- MS Outlook + add-on EmaiMerge Pro for Outlook (only for mass emailing once a month)

More precisely, we extensively use Word mail merge in connection with our Access database (almost 5,000 records - our clientele information). We prepare our draft emails and a lot of corporate documents, by using Word mail merge.

In brief, the Word mail merge + Access combination is crucial for our business.

Expected Situation

I want to move our whole business in the cloud by using any appropriate Microsoft solution.

Problem

I am unable to find a solution allowing us to continue to use Word mailmerge + Access if we put our business in the cloud.

Microsoft 365, including Sharepoint, is nice but Word does not allow us to use a data source that is online.

Windows 365 is an interesting solution, maybe?

I recently have a virtual meeting with a member of the Microsoft cloud team, but he had no solution (weird...).

Do you have any idea how I can achieve my goal to move our business in the cloud and continue to use Word mailmerge with Access?

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated.

[#2]

Mail Merge pre-dates the Cloud by about 40 years and virtually nothing has changed with it. Further, I think that it is unlikely that Microsoft will ever modify Mail Merge so that it works with a data source that is located in the Cloud.

I would set up a procedure in Access to output the required data to an Excel Workbook on the local drive\server and use that as the data source

[#3]

@corpomax 

Access does NOT run "in the cloud". It runs under Windows, on a Windows computer. 

It is not safe to try to use Access from a SharePoint location. In order to support multiple users changing or adding records in the tables in a shared accdb, the operating system must support a protocol to do that. SharePoint doesn't support that protocol. That means if you put Access in a SharePoint library it is effectively single-user only.

Windows 365? Perhaps you meant Microsoft 365? It does support online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint--not Access. And as Doug pointed out, the online version of Word would not continue to support mail merge anyway.

Where does that leave you?

You can continue to use Access and Word from your desktops. You can move the DATA in the accdb Back End for your relational database application "to the cloud". That can be SharePoint lists linked to the desktop Access FE. That can be Dataverse tables, or that can be a remotely hosted SQL Server instance, or Azure SQL.

[#4]

On the External Data tab, in the Export group, click Word Merge. The Microsoft Word Mail Merge Wizard dialog box opens. Choose whether you want the wizard to link your address data into an existing Word document, or to start with a new, blank document. Click OK.

Regards,
Will