Access onto Sharepoint? (1 Viewer)

[YNWA]

Hi,

I built a database for a client in Access and it works fine etc...

Now they have come to me telling me they can not get in to go onto their Sharepoint site. Now I don't think anyone technical has tried to do it, rather just the admins in the office.

I have never hosted a database on Sharepoint before. The current database is located on a desktop. It is not split either.

Is there any easy process to get the database from desktop to Sharepoint? If so, do I need to split database before I do it or anything else?

If anyone has a Idiots Guide type post I could refer to that would be great.

And finally, is there a reason why they should NOT put the database on Sharepoint? Is there an easy, cheaper or better Cloud solution they could use?

And finally, finally... I have been asked to quote for this job, now obviously if I study it and with some trial and error I will get there. But what would be the standard amount of time you would expect this to take? Approximately like?

Thanks again Access bods.

 

[CraigDolphin]

My impression is that there are definitely some traps for novice players in Access/Sharepoint integration. I researched this a while back but haven't yet got any first hand experience with it.
You may find these videos helpful
http://accessexperts.net/blog/2011/06/15/sharepoint-and-access-how-do-they-fit-together/
http://accessexperts.net/blog/2011/07/07/sharepoint-lists-and-microsoftaccess/

My overall summary: Access has two 'types' of database within sharepoint. One is essentially the same as the desktop version that can be hosted by sharepoint and uses 'lists' instead of tables. The second is a browser version of the database that can do very limited things and cannot use vba code in any capacity at all. (The Access people at Microsoft seem to want everyone to switch to using macros.)

So if your admins are trying to create a browser based version of your front-end, and it contains vba, then maybe that's the source of the problems they're having. There's a conversion wizard in Access 2010 onwards that's supposed to help with this but I suspect that you need to know a good amount about both Access and Sharepoint to have much of a chance with it.

One other thing: performance of lists in Access 2010 is abysmally slow. They fixed it in Access 2013 but based on what I saw, I'd say sharepoint/access (in Access 2010) is almost unusable for anything other than trivial/tiny datasets, even if you can live without vba in the browser-enabled objects in your db.

 

[YNWA]

Thanks.

The main reason for it being online is simply to access it from different locations outside of the workplace.

I feel sharepoint is too extreme for this simple need. The database relies heavily on vba so browser is out of the question.

I think the only ability it needs is to be accessed external and obviously work if 2 or more people access it at the same time.

Thanks

 

[YNWA]

Anyone got any answers? Thanks

 

[YNWA]

Guess its a Nope? :-(

 

[YNWA]

Can anyone help us with a solution to this?

Thanks

 

[James Dudden]

Here are a few options:

1. If you have a server put the database on that and then the remote users can use remote desktop to login.

2. Buy a server though this will be expensive and then follow option 1.

3. Remotely host the database on a rented server. This means all users would have to login via the internet plus there would be a monthly fee per user.

4. Set up a pc in the office per user for each user who needs to login remotely and then they can use free software such as Logmein.

I guess it depends how many users you have, how many need to login remotely etc