Microsoft Support for SharePoint Metadata Changes from Access

[Siemarque]

Hi,

I have a number of Access frontends in play and need them to talk with SharePoint Online. Okay, no problem there. Microsoft has made it all extremely easy to link, query and edit data in lists and document stores.

But now I'm being assured by an external consultant that Microsoft does not support document store metadata updates from Access. Either in the form of update queries or VBA recordset edits.

They can be done, but Microsoft do not guarantee the integrity of a document store list updated in this way.

The consultant is urging me to use the REST API instead.

This would make for an extremely long-winded solution, especially as the more look into it the more I find that can be done directly from Access.

No feature is there by accident and surely Microsoft would not have provided the means if they didn't want people to do it.

Does anyone know the truth about this?

[#2]

@Siemarque 

Actually, I am not really sure what you mean by this:

"But now I'm being assured by an external consultant that Microsoft does not support document store metadata updates from Access. Either in the form of update queries or VBA recordset edits."

Maybe you can explain what you are trying to accomplish.

[#3]

@George Hepworth

Simply to use the SharePoint/Access interface to update metadata in document stores. Access can already move/save documents to a store and so the updating of the metadata would be an obvious requirement having done so. But the consultant says that Microsoft would wash their hands of any form of support if the schema were to become corrupted, or the table structure damaged in some way.
I can't see how that would be possible as nothing can be done to the tables except what Microsoft has allowed to be done in the design of the interface.
That said, I do notice that a table called Taxonomyhiddenlist has appeared accompanying a table I linked to, and looking inside there appears to be plenty of stuff in there which I'm sure I'm not supposed to see.

[#4]

@Siemarque 

Thanks for the elaboration.

I think you may be looking at a different solution here.

Access manages data in tables (and SharePoint lists). It's very good at that.

You need to manage data in the SharePoint environment, more specifically metadata regarding documents stored there. Access is not designed to do that.

That said, Access can use VBA and Windows APIs to manage a lot of metadata in Windows Networks, so it's not like this isn't something unreasonable to think about. On the other hand, SharePoint is not a Windows Network environment, so expecting to reach out and do that with VBA seems a bit of a reach.

I think, though, that within the SharePoint environment itself, you should be able to create Flows (or maybe there's a newer name) to manage the metadata there. I know next to nothing about that, so this is largely speculation. But do look into PowerAutomate  and Flows in SharePoint. See if that is an avenue through which you can achieve the required results. 

[#5]

Re-reading the original post I see that the consultant recommended "the REST API" and that's pretty much the same thing I would suggest, albeit I would suggest a PowerAutomate or Flow that uses the REST API. Still would need to be done on the SP side.