Access and the US Government

[NauticalGent]

Greetings AWF

I was asked how prevalent MS Access was in the day-to-day operations of the US Government. I decided to answer in this forum so we could all read it and discuss.

The US Navy, for the most part, contracts all IT support - both hardware and software. I beleive Doc was employed by one of those companies at one time. For the record, General Dynamics holds the current contract for the Navy for all of Europe and the Middle East.

This means I get a brand new computer every 2 years and usually the complete MS Office suite that the powers that be decide we need. At present it is 2013.

As you have guessed, Excel is the most popular App used. These folks will even use it as a word processor because they can't figure out the table functions in Word!

There are VERY few active duty military and Government Service (GS) civilians who dare to use Access, it's just too foreign to them and the DoD just will not take the time to train anyone. This is especially disheartening because EVERY office has a need for some sort of DB which they use Excel to fill the gap. Take make you really roll your eyes is that we have access to a VERY robust SQL server that is so under utilized it is criminal.

If the Gov would simply invest some time in educating its employees on some simple concepts like automation, the Navy would be that much more efficient. Until then all I can do is smile to myself and vent here.

Thanks for listening

 

[theDBguy]

Hi. If you were in the US, you would be on the NMCI network, but being overseas, you're probably using One-Net. On NMCI networks, there is a website portal called Homeport where training materials, including one for using Access is available. I wonder if there's an equivalent portal site for One-Net users.

 

[NauticalGent]

Hi DBG,

You are spot-on regarding both accounts...the opportunities are there, no one wants to take the time to take advantage of it.

Also, when the tenant commands write the Position Descriptions for their internal IT departments, they write them for fully qualified network specialists who, due to the IT contracts, cannot even use those skills! They are over qualified secretaries.

Those PDs should be rewritten as Office Automation Specialists...the DoD would benefit so much more. It is FRUSTRATING...

 

[theDBguy]

Hi DBG,

You are spot-on regarding both accounts...the opportunities are there, no one wants to take the time to take advantage of it.

Also, when the tenant commands write the Position Descriptions for their internal IT departments, they write them for fully qualified network specialists who, due to the IT contracts, cannot even use those skills! They are over qualified secretaries.

Those PDs should be rewritten as Office Automation Specialists...the DoD would benefit so much more. It is FRUSTRATING...

Hi. I hear you... That and coupled by the "slowness" of progress in the IT department because of red tape. I remember when the Ribbon first came out in Office/Access 2007 and the DoD decided it's too dangerous to allow users to have access to it, so they put it in the STIG to disable all custom Office Ribbons.

 

[vba_php]

General Dynamics holds the current contract for the Navy for all of Europe and the Middle East.

GD has their hand in a lot of things in the marketplace, both public and private don't they? I seem to remember them being as influential as some of the other big players....

This means I get a brand new computer every 2 years

if you've recently got a new one with win 10 on it, watch out for stuff like this!

Excel is the most popular App used. These folks will even use it as a word processor because they can't figure out the table functions in Word!

I've never built and dealt with a single table object in MS Word in 30 years. I think I should expand my skillset!

This is especially disheartening because EVERY office has a need for some sort of DB which they use Excel to fill the gap.

this is exactly like most of the small time employers I've worked for....they use excel because it's easy, you open it and you can start typing anywhere, and it's flat....no architectural complexity to learn. When they open access, they see nothing but a blank screen. Scares them to death!

If the Gov would simply invest some time in educating its employees on some simple concepts like automation, the Navy would be that much more efficient.

makes me wonder if that's another effect of general government paranoia when it comes to taking on something new.....

 

[NauticalGent]

Hi. I hear you... That and coupled by the "slowness" of progress in the IT department because of red tape. I remember when the Ribbon first came out in Office/Access 2007 and the DoD decided it's too dangerous to allow users to have access to it, so they put it in the STIG to disable all custom Office Ribbons.

Only someone plugged in would know what a STIG is...

 

[theDBguy]

Only someone plugged in would know what a STIG is...

What can I say? We all have our secrets...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I worked with the Navy as a contractor for 28 1/2 years. Those of you who understand the world of government contracting will understand when I say I ALWAYS worked for the Navy but worked for 8 different companies during that time.

The organization I worked for was named several different things in 28 1/2 years because NO government agency can leave well enough alone. I ended up working for the Naval Enterprise Data Center New Orleans. I'll spare you the other names. NEDC NO was on the NMCI (that's Navy / Marine Corps Intranet) and was part of the tech refresh cycle that got us new machines every couple of years. I left when we were still running Win7 because we were having a devil of a time making Win10 behave to match our security guys' requirements. My friend Jonathan N. was going stark raving nuts because Win10 security was GOING to roll it's own patterns, Navy be damned. Among other things, the Security Technical Installation Guide (STIG) set was NOT working and the Navy said we were going to say until HELL froze over if Win10 wasn't able to take the hint. I never did figure out how that worked because that project was still under way when I retired.

As to Access, we had three different projects that I knew about in our office. Two of them were mine at different times. The third one was for BUMED (U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine) and was a personnel app for Navy doctors who would get scholarships through medical school in return for a guaranteed amount of service on ships or at foreign bases where the Navy had a presence. There they used Access for an FE and SQL Server for a BE. I would come in to consult from time to time on that one but it wasn't my baby.

My two apps were native Access FE/BE, shared properly. The first was a server inventory (which was at the time in the several hundred server range) and the second one was a security status tracker. For the latter, we had 80 projects, over 1200 servers when I started it (and 1500 when I retired) - which meant 80 separate reports to 80 separate project managers.

We tracked 30 Navy security bulletins of various types per month across those 1000+ servers. They ran under 10 different O/S varieties including Windows Server 7 and more recent ones. We also had not less than four different UNIX flavors, and there were a few specialty cases, plus my big Navy Reservist system on OpenVMS.

The Navy kept on trying to take over the Access systems to upgrade them to something that was (a) big-boy based and (b) web-based because they were trying to provide services for the other NEDC installations. My design was the best they could find (including some commercial OTS apps) but since it was maintained by a single person who was about to retire, the Navy had to replace it. Nature of the beast when working with the feds. But that was handled in a different but recent thread.

 

[vba_php]

hey Richard and NG,

this gentleman, who is a real smart dude and has been around for many years, was the one who enlightened me about the government's heavy use of ms access in its operations.

 

[isladogs]

Only someone plugged in would know what a STIG is...

All I could think of when I read that was the Stig from Top Gear and the kids book Stig of the Dump. Both clearly wrong though in a sense the latter had some relevance now I've looked it up.

I'll leave other ignorant souls to make the same journey as I did