Office365 Migration

[Nigejk]

I am looking at migrating an Access database to an office365 / cloud based system and thought I would get a few peoples views on the best way to go about this.

I wrote an Access database a few years ago which is quite an in depth but slightly clunky project management system which has a nice front end with quite a lot of VBA code behind it to make it user friendly. It works with the front end on the users computer and the database files on the local server.

The reason I want to migrate it to Office365 is so that it can be accessed from outside the office and to try and integrate with outlook365. I am interested to learn if anybody has tried to do anything similar or has any suggestions.

Cheers

 

[CJ_London]

Your question is too broad to give a concise response and there are plenty of thread on this subject on this and other forums - look to the bottom of this thread for some related threads.

you need to be clearer about what 'outside the office' means. There is a world of difference between client based apps such as access and ones designed for the web. Does this mean users connecting from home or the local cafe? Who has access? employees or anyone - and if the latter with or without some sort of registration process? What will users be doing?

What is your budget? anything involving connecting via the web will involve a cost.

You would probably be better to migrate everything to Citrix or terminal server in that it involves minimal changes to your app and external access is handled by those services - users just login via remote desktop.

Moving to office 365 will probably mean migrating your backend to sharepoint or something like sql azure.

 

[Pat Hartman]

There is no path to the cloud for Access. Access is a client/server application intended to run on a PC and not in a web browser. MS made another abortive attempt to webifiy Access with Access Web Apps (AWA) but due to their limitations, the feature was dropped and is no longer supported. Even AWA were not a path to the cloud for an existing Access spp since although you can easily convert the data from Jet or ACE to Azure, there is NO PATH to convert anything else. The app would have needed to be completely rewritten and all forms rebuilt WITHOUT code since AWA supported only macros. Given their limitations AWA's were not widely adopted and are now just a memory.

At this writing,
the best solution for distributing an Access app to people not on your LAN is by using Citrix or Terminal Server as CJ suggested. Neither solution will require changes to the application. Both can be hosted in house on your own server and so the cost can be contained. With in-house hosting, you can have a mixture of people connecting as the do now over the LAN and also others connecting to the same back end database using Citrix or terminal services. The Citrix users have excellent response time, frequently even better than the LAN users. I am less familiar with TS.

If you host the app in the cloud, ALL users must connect via Citrix or TS. There are NO local users possible. That can increase your costs but everything is a trade off.

There is no integration with cloud based Office apps regardless of where the Access apps are hosted. To have Access automate Office apps, they must be installed locally. Most O365 plans allow for both local installation as well as cloud usage from a phone or tablet. Just FYI, although Word, Excel, and Outlook can be run using cloud versions on phones and tablets, Access is strictly a PC application. It MUST be installed locally. It does not ever run in a browser (except by using Citrix and TS).

 

[Nigejk]

Thanks for the replies that has helped my understanding of what is and is not possible. I think what I actually want to achieve is something that is relatively simple but the amount of apps etc that are associated with Office365 seems to be endless and not actually that helpful individually. From what I can make out Access may even be the wrong vehicle for what I want to do now.

My database is essentially a place where contacts, companies and info can be stored on projects. The front allows you to select a project which then allows you to see all the contact details of people/companies on the project, along with some basic info about the project. Apart from having all this information nicely at your finger tips it was quite helpful at letting you assign contacts to a project. For example when assigning a supplier a combo box would be used which would filter all the contacts for suppliers presenting a list of suppliers to choose from. I should point out that the contacts were a separate database not outlook contacts - something that I always wanted to change but didnt get round to.
The user has a front end mdb file on their computer which then draws from and writes to database files on the server.

Ultimately I want to combine the databases in Outlook - contacts, calendar, tasks with a project database (on sharepoint?) that can be produced in a front end where you can easily find and assign the information you want for each project.

Something like an Outlook addin would seem ideal as Outlook is where most of this information is stored and would seem like a very convenient place to access the information. While investigating possibilities I came across the outlook customer manager addin which at a basic level has similarities to what I would like to do.

This is only a small scale project so there is not much in the way of budget. Any thoughts?

 

[isladogs]

Pat

Just want to comment on one point in your reply

If you host the app in the cloud, ALL users must connect via Citrix or TS. There are NO local users possible. That can increase your costs but everything is a trade off.

I have no experience of Citrix so can't comment on that.
However I did have experience of MS Terminal Services for about 5 years until 2012 and disagree with that comment. Both in the school I worked in and in several schools who were clients for my schools apps, staff used the app on the school network when on site and using Terminal Services when offsite - usually from home. I wasn't involved in how the deployment was done but as I understood it at the time, it was relatively straightforward to setup (but licensing wasn't cheap)

I fully agree with the rest of your post. Having tried very hard to work with AWAs a few years ago, I don't miss their passing at all.
I never understood why reports weren't possible in AWAs.
From what I've read PowerApps aren't in any sense a replacement for even the limited functionality of AWAs

 

[Pat Hartman]

Colin,
The point I was making is regarding where the application is hosted. If you create a Citrix server that is attached to your LAN, It can access the same BE that your local LAN users access. However, if you went to a third party to host the Citrix server, That remote server could not get to your local LAN to connect to the BE that the LAN users linked to. So, if you want to host Citrix off site, then the BE needs to be on the same server where Citrix is hosted and that means that the local LAN users would have to connect via Citrix rather than directly. Hope that clarifies the point. Of course the Citrix users are off site, that is the point. The difference is WHERE Citrix is hosted. On your LAN or in the Cloud. I do have one client that doesn't have any local servers. (gives me the willies but they are currently happy). Therefore, ALL users use Citrix to connect to the Access applications. There are no local users because there is no LAN.

 

[isladogs]

Hi Pat,
Yes I understood what you meant originally, though as already stated I've never personally been involved with a Citrix setup.
However the additional detail is helpful.

As I thought I'd made clear, my response was regarding the use of MS Terminal Services and AFAIR, no remote server was involved in setting this up

 

[Pat Hartman]

The situation would be the same with TS although I have never heard of anyone hosting the Access app in the cloud with TS. If you did, you would have the same issue. If the TS server is NOT running on your LAN, ALL users would need to use TS and none could connect via the LAN.

Citrix is based on TS technology.

 

[CJ_London]

The reason I want to migrate it to Office365 is so that it can be accessed from outside the office and to try and integrate with outlook365

back to this comment. There are two versions of office 365, one is entirely web based (i.e. run through a browser only) with relatively limited functionality - tho' probably meets 95% of needs of 95% of users. But has no integration options at all other than any built in. This version does not have access.

The other is client based (i.e. software is installed on the users machine) but can be run from anywhere subject to a suitable connection. However Access remains client based - including the back end.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think I said that. Also, I'm pretty sure it is only the lowest priced option that runs only in the cloud. The others should support either cloud or local, except of course for Access which as I mentioned is local only.