Remote access Access (COVID!)

[johnbornsworth]

Hi everyone. My employees want to work from home because of the international pandemic going on. Can we put our Access DB online? It's a very small database that manages our clients and projects. We're a small environmental consulting firm with 3 employees. It's currently split with the front end on our desktops and the back end on a single computer w/ shared files. We use a VPN client to access our local files not on SharePoint, but can we use our VPN client to remote into the back end of the database?? We're somewhat adept, but not experts.

John

 

[CJ_London]

you should be able to. Connection over VPN can be slow, particularly if your db has not been optimised for working on remote servers. Make sure your VPN is configured to provide sufficient bandwidth.

Best thing to do is try it - when at home, a) can you see the backend? if so b) note the path c) if necessary, use the linked table manager to reconnect your front end to the backend d) see how it performs.

Note Access does not take kindly to wireless connections (even a disconnection of a nano second can upset things) so make sure at home your computer is wired to your router.

A better solution would be to use terminal server or citrix. (Terminal server typically costs around 25$/user/month). Better because a) users have their own profile so you can mount the front ends in their user space and backend in shared space on the server so if you lose connection Access is not affected (and you can connect wirelessly if you have to) and b) performance will probably be better than your current setup - it will be like users have a local copy of the backend. You can also put all your shared files there as well - so someone does not have to go to the office if your office machine closes down for some reason. Also pretty easy to setup - simply copy your files across and relink the back ends. Given these extraordinary times it is probably a worthwhile investment.

 

[Solo712]

Hi everyone. My employees want to work from home because of the international pandemic going on. Can we put our Access DB online? It's a very small database that manages our clients and projects. We're a small environmental consulting firm with 3 employees. It's currently split with the front end on our desktops and the back end on a single computer w/ shared files. We use a VPN client to access our local files not on SharePoint, but can we use our VPN client to remote into the back end of the database?? We're somewhat adept, but not experts.

John

Hi John. My own experience with a back-end on WAN via VPN gateways has not been good. Even with a fast network, we had frequent db corruptions. They seemed to occur regularly if a workstation had paused in communicating with a server for any amount of time. We never found out the cause of the corruptions but they likely had to do with security timeouts and re-connections. In the end we decided to create private copies of the database and then re-assemble the master database from those copies. We did that once a day by an automated process. This was fairly simple and painless because the database was partitioned, i.e. each agent's workstation had its own set of clients and tasks which were clearly marked in the db tables. There were seven active agents.
Best,
Jiri

 

[Pat Hartman]

If the users have PC's that can stay in the office, GoToMyPC is an excellent solution for small numbers of people and can be implemented temporarily.

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The key is - the PC's stay in the office and the users connect via their home computer. I am using this product now and it works very well. It supports file transfers and local printing so I can print to the printer at my house rather than the one in the office. It even supports dual monitors.

Installing a VPN (virtual private netword) might work for you if your BE is SQL Server. Because of the way the VPN works, Access FE' connected to Jet/ACE BE's are very slow over a VPN but Access FE's connected via ODBC to a server based relational database are much better but still might be slower than over your LAN.