4 Tips to Help You Move beyond Access Data Projects

In this article, we explain you the alternatives when working with Access Data Projects.

MS Access in its recent and updated version is not providing support for Access Data Projects (ADP) however, the older editions of the application will continue supporting ADP. For users of the application, it is important to know the alternatives if they plan to update their access application. But before we proceed towards suggesting you the alternatives, there are certain basics you need to understand.

Why Access is no longer supporting ADP

The main reason why ADP is no longer being supported by Access is that SQL Azure needs to go through significant changes to support ADP. Although ADPs are of great help when working with SQL Server on-premises, that might not always be the case. Keeping this in mind, Access has stopped supporting ADPs altogether. It has at the same time introduced an application that can be used for creating web-based Access applications which also make use of SQL Server on-premise, as well as on cloud.

Future of ADP and its alternatives

For those with access to older versions of MS Access, you can still continue using ADP, but none of these versions will be updated to provide support for the updated editions of SQL Server and SQL Azure. Therefore using ADPs with recent editions of SQL Server might create problems. Given below are 4 alternatives you can use

1. Converting to Access App – You can make use of Access for importing your existing tables to a new Access app. In this process, new forms for the application will be created automatically. You can opt for extending the functionality of Access base forms, and allow the user to access your application over the web.
2. Converting to Linked Desktop Databases – The support for creating .accdb desktop databases is still there, you can thus opt for converting your application with all its objects to this format. You can also opt for linking these databases to SQL Server by using linked tables. This will allow your application to operate with existing data.
3. Creating a Hybrid Application – If your application contains large amounts of data, and you do not wish to convert all of it at once, you can opt for importing the data in an Access app and then linking it to a SQL Server database. In this process, your migration will happen gradually, with forms and functionalities being added over time to the Access app.
4. Upgrading to .NET framework – You might have an Access application that you feel is too complex to be moved to a development platform that is as professional as a .NET Framework. SQL Server is provided to you to make the process of shifting application easier. This allows to you to make use of your already existing database infrastructure, along with extending the functionality of the application without making any changes to the code, let alone re-writing it altogether.

MS Access has originally been designed to provide you with apps that can quickly create and share data which is used for running your business. And after so many years, this highly user friendly database is still used by millions across the world. However it does have the drawback of throwing up corrupted mdb files once in a while. To deal with such scenarios it is prudent to keep a specialized recovery application like DataNumen Access Repair installed in your system.

Author Introduction:

Vivian Stevens is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including sql recovery and excel recovery software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com