Microsoft Access Team Blog

Access Services overview and install information

2009-11-19T18:22:00Z

Recently on The Access Show Ryan and I introduced Access Services and created a donations application that ran in the browser. I thought it would be helpful to provide some background to the vision and direction.

Years ago I came across a post on UtterAccess that articulately described what we hope to accomplish with Access 2010. Stormin on UtterAccess says he is:

… looking for clues to how I could create an Access application that would run from within an Access database, as well as from the web (from a single point of maintenance, of course!).

Reading between the lines a little—Stormin wants to keep all the goodness of the Access as a RAD tool but reap the deployment benefits of the web browser.

As we looked at the long term direction of the product and Office—it was clear that Access 2010 needed to allow users to create databases run in the browser that could live in the cloud. There are so many interesting scenarios for how people need to collaborate in the new global economy—making it easy to share databases is a critical step.

As we spoke with leaders in IT organizations it became clear they were equally interested in a single point of maintenance. In most large organizations it is very difficult to get IT to provide Access users with a SQL Server and ASP.Net web server for small team applications. They are primarily turning to SharePoint as the tool for business users to store all types of information including documents, Wikis, blogs, and lists. From an operational perspective, there continues to be heavy investments in infrastructure to run SharePoint as a server or hosted service (such as SharePoint Online).

Access 2007 forged the initial down payment into SharePoint as a platform for Access databases. Access developers told us clearly there were four things that limited adoption of the Access 2007 SharePoint functionality:

Data integrity. Developers needed better control over the integrity of the data. Basic concepts like restrict insert, cascade delete, is unique, required, and validation rules were essential for any well designed database.
Performance. Performance on SharePoint lists was not acceptable for many applications. Once users entered more than a couple thousand records it was not uncommon to run into performance problems.
Web forms and reports. Users wanted easier deployment with forms and reports in the browser.
Distribution. Many people indicated SharePoint wasn’t deployed in their organization.

Install Instructions

How do you get started with Access Services? It is possible to install it on a Vista 64 bit or Windows 7 machine for developer evaluation. First, you will want to download the SharePoint 2010 beta and install the prereqs. Here is an article that walks you through installing SharePoint 2010. Assuming you want to run reports on your machine you will need to install Reporting Services before installing SharePoint 2010 and enable session state after the SharePoint install. Here is the download for SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP Reporting Services Add-in. I strongly recommend installing RS before SharePoint. FWIW – we are doing some work post Beta 2 to make setup easier… I think that is the information you need to get started—good luck.

Over the next couple of months we will talk about the work that has gone into these four areas. Next up—Ric will introduce you to publish and we have an Access Show that talks about IT manageability.

Download Access 2010 Public Beta today

2009-11-18T22:03:29Z

Today, we are thrilled to announce the release of the public beta of Access 2010, Access 2010 Runtime, and SharePoint 2010. You can download Office and SharePoint at www.microsoft.com/2010.

My July post Access 2010--The 10,000 ft. View outlined the following advancements:

Get started faster
Better design and customization tools
Centralized business logic
Landing pad for data
SharePoint performance and offline
Browser apps

Last month Ryan and I gave the first public demo on Channel 9. If you haven’t see it—definitely interesting for Access users. See the 2010 Intro Series and Top 10 Benefits for more information about what is new.

Access 2010 Runtime

As many of you know, the Access 2007 Runtime didn’t ship until some time after Access 2007 RTM. This was cause of frustration for many of our developers who had solutions ready for customers. This release, we have a goal to ship the Access Runtime as close to Access 2010 as possible. As a part of this effort, the Access 2010 Runtime Beta is ready for download. You can download the Access 2010 Runtime Beta today.

Here are some of the new features in Access 2010 Runtime:

Published Apps: In Access 2010, users can create applications and publish for sharing it with other users. Access Runtime works great with published Access web applications. Users can open and upload data changes using the Access 2010 Runtime.
Access 2010 caching: In Access 2007 Runtime, “Take Offline” (Access 2007 caching) was not available in the Runtime. In Access 2010 Runtime, customers get to access to the faster and automatic Access 2010 caching. Feature now available to Runtime customers include – reconnect lists, automatic offline when connectivity is lost, and notifications when connectivity is restored.
Backstage: Backstage will be available to allow users to print, close and sign up for Customer Experience Improvement Program. Developers can extend backstage and add custom tabs and buttons for their applications.
New Access features: Runtime users will be able to use the new rich features introduced in Access 2010 such as Data Macros, BCS data, navigation control, web browser control, conditional formatting, and calculated columns.
64-Bit: Access 2010 Runtime will be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Languages: Access 2010 Runtime beta is available in 6 languages (en-us, zh-cn, ja-jp, fr-fr, de-de, es-es, ru-ru). The RTM version will be released in as many languages as Access 2010.

Give Feedback

We look forward to your feedback. The best way is the Send a Smile tool that is included again with the Public Beta. This lets you send us comments and a screenshot of what you are doing. Please include your email address if you want us to follow up with you. Members of the team will be looking for your feedback.

Access 2010 Create ribbon

2009-11-18T05:31:20Z

Web databases introduced a few ribbon design challenges, particularly how to present client and web create options? We wanted to make sure that people creating client objects are just as successful as web objects.

When you create a new database from scratch, you have two options: either to open a blank database or a blank Web database.

Creating a new blank Web database opens a new database that allows you to create both Web and Client objects. Client objects have the full designers and ability to include VBA whereas the Web object designers enable you to build tables, queries, forms, reports and macros that can run on the Web and take advantage of the functionalities of Access Services. The Create ribbon makes it easy to create Web objects by selecting any of the top level options. Client objects can be created by selecting the options in the Client Forms, Client Reports and Client Objects dropdowns.

Creating a new blank database opens a new database that has the full designers. Any form, report, query or macro you create in this database cannot run on the Web. This Create ribbon is below and gives all the Client objects you can create.

You can still publish the database to Access Services. You do this by going to the File tab, going to the Save & Publish tab and selecting the Publish to Access Services option. Once the database passes compatibility checker and publishes, you can create Web objects to bring parts of your database to the Web. At this point, the ribbon changes to the Web database ribbon that optimizes entry points to create Web objects.

There will be a few changes coming after Beta 2… For book authors interested in how the Create ribbon will look when we ship Access 2010, you can reference the ribbon below.

RTM Web Database:

RTM Client Database:

Enjoy!

Add color formatting to columns in Combo Boxes and List Boxes

2009-11-17T18:18:00Z

Today's guest blogger is Pavlo Pedan of ARGO Business Corp. He has 15 years of experience with Access and has a great site of tips at http://sites.google.com/site/msaccesscode/.

As we all know, a List Box control has a Fore Color property. It sets the fore color for column values and headers simultaneously. Also, we know that table and query fields have a Format property, where color formatting can be set. For example, you can format a number field as 0.00[Green].

As stated in Access 97, 2003 and 2007 help, "If you set a field's Format property in table Design view, Microsoft Access uses that format to display data in datasheets. It also applies the field's Format property to new controls on forms and reports."

So when creating a new Text Box control, the Text Box inherits the underlying field's Format property. However, List Boxes and Combo Boxes can also inherit this color formatting. And, it works for existing controls as well as new ones. You can change the Format property for a table field, and the new color will be inherited by an existing control (Text Box, List Box, or Combo Box).

The strange thing is, the List Box control has no Format property, and the Format property for the Combo Box control is not changed by the Format property of the underlying field. See a sample database here for some examples.

Using color formatting for list boxes and combo boxes definitely makes an application more attractive. One can set different columns into different colors, set different colors for header and items, and use a type of conditional formatting for empty values. For example, the Format property for Field2 in the picture above is: [Blue];@;"Empty"[Magenta]. This formatting overrides the Fore Color property of the control.

Such formatting is applicable not only for underlying tables, but for queries as well. Therefore, by choosing different queries for different List Boxes, we can have different sets of colors while referencing the same table.

However, some limitations apply. The above only seems to work for Access 97 and 2007 (and 2010?) but not for 2003. Also, it seems to work only for Text and Memo fields.

Have you experimented with this? If so, please post a comment!

Thank you,
Pavlo

Send your Power Tips to Mike and Chris at accpower@microsoft.com.

Build navigation UI with Access 2010

2009-11-14T16:08:00Z

Today’s guest writer is Wouter Steenbergen, a PM on the Access team responsible for Access form and report designers.

If you want to build an easy to use application it always starts with a good navigation model that allows users to quickly perform the most common tasks and easily find the less common tasks. Years ago, Access introduced the concept of a switchboard manager which has become a mainstay for many applications in the late 90’s. The hierarchical model and ease of adding new objects into the interface served our community well for many years. However, advancements in web design and user interfaces have developed more intuitive interface models. When was the last time you saw a well-designed web site that worked like a switchboard manager?

Moving Access to the web was a great opportunity for us to re-invent the tools we provide to build navigation. It started with an exhaustive study of many of the top 100 web sites. A few patterns emerged: Web sites usually have top level navigation commands and often expose sub navigation directly below or along the left side. When users navigate the top level color and background images typically highlight to users what top level item is selected. It’s a useful paradigm that gives users sense of direction.

In Access 2010, we have implemented a new way to implement navigation; navigation forms. Navigation controls support the new look and feel functionality that Viki and Steve talked about in an earlier post. This guarantees many opportunities to create a great-looking web interface that is easy to understand and simple to use. Take a look at the Demo of Access 2010 room bookings database, Albert really summarizes the Navigation form well at the start of his video.

How does it work?

Here is a quick demo on how it works:

When you create a navigation form using one of six predefined layouts, it contains a navigation control and a subform control. These two controls are connected by the NavigationTarget property on the navigation control.

When you drag a form or report onto the navigation bar, a new button is added. Selecting the button causes the corresponding form or report to appear in the subform control.

Advanced Access users may notice that this implies that we removed another design limitation. In Access 2010 it is possible to render reports in a subform control on a form. This makes reports a truly integrated part of your web application.

After making your navigation form, you can set the NavigationWhereClause in the button’s property pane, to make the Navigation button automatically apply a filter when the button is selected. This makes it super easy to filter an existing view without creating different forms or queries.

Programmability

The navigation control is accessible by using the object model. It’s not possible to dynamically add or remove tabs, but a lot of other properties are available.

You can show or hide buttons based on the role of the user by setting the visible property in an OnLoad or OnCurrent event. Other properties that are available on navigation buttons are Enabled, Visible, Locked, ForeColor, BackColor and Caption.

Drawing your own buttons

You can replace the look of all your tab buttons by selecting icons instead of typing in the button caption. This allows you to customize the look and feel of your navigation even more. In the example to the right, I used icons borrowed from Excel’s conditional formatting.

Some of the new shapes introduced in Access 2010 are specifically designed for use with navigation and tab controls. They’ll allow you to create a nice tab-like experience when designing your navigation.

Navigation versus Tab controls

Some people may wonder when to use a navigation form versus a tab control. The difference between tab and navigation controls is that the controls in a tab are part of the form. Individual tabs are hidden behind each other. The navigation control unloads and loads a new form (or report) in the sub-form control. This triggers record updates and requeries the data source.

Other Resources

If you are interested in learning more about how to build good navigation UI, I strongly recommend chapter 7 of Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.

Sorting a Listbox Using Command Buttons

2009-11-13T23:28:01Z

Today’s guest blogger is Daniel Lamarche. Daniel is the Training Director at ComboProjects, which specializes in providing custom training solutions in Microsoft Office products.

I always thought it was cool to be able to sort a list by clicking the column heading once, for ascending order then once more for descending order.

A while ago I decided to tackle this feature in an Access form.

The buttons above the field names are used to sort the list. The triangle pointing down means the column is in descending order.

Clicking on it again will sort that column in ascending order and the triangle will be pointing up. Like you are used to.

This project required a basic understanding of Access SQL and concatenating strings.

When you configure the Listbox using the Row Source property to specify the data that will appear in the list you are in fact creating a SQL statement.

Read the rest of the article and download a sample database here: http://www.comboprojects.com/articles/accSortingList/accSortingListbox.html

Send your Power Tips to Mike and Chris at accpower@microsoft.com.

Why Access works for Blue Link

2009-11-13T05:44:41Z

Today’s guest blogger is Darren Myher. Darren is the VP Operations of Blue Link Associates Limited, a Gold Certified Microsoft ISV Partner. Blue Link’s flagship product: “Blue Link Elite” is a fully integrated accounting and inventory management system built using Microsoft Access and SQL Server.

Darren has attended several of our developer kitchen events over the last couple of years. I liked his perspective about Access and asked him if he would share his experience with our audience.

-- Clint

Every company has something that makes their business unique – a competitive advantage that needs to be supported and enhanced by the software they choose to run their business. Using Microsoft Access as the front end UI to a SQL Server back-end allows Blue Link to build and customize robust applications that meet the unique requirements of every client – at a cost, and in a timeframe that makes the solutions we develop both feature-rich and affordable.

Building Applications with Microsoft Access & SQL Server = Competitive Advantage

To me, building solutions in Microsoft Access is about giving my company – and my customers a competitive advantage.

I gain competitive advantage because I can offer my clients more functionality at a lower cost and in a shorter timeframe than any of my competitors. In turn, my customers gain competitive advantage by having custom-tailored software solutions that incorporate features that they just wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.

Rapid Application Prototyping and Development

Access enables both rapid application prototyping and development. When I sit with a customer to build a user interface prototype, the result is a clear vision of what the software will look like and how end users will interact with the software. Having that clear vision reduces the time it takes to build and test the solution, and ensures that the client gets what was discussed during the specification stage.

You don’t realize what you get for “free” with Access until you try to use something that isn’t Access to do the same thing:

Recently, I tried using .net development technologies (because that’s what everyone seems to wants you to do), to create a data-centric application. The project took months of development and went way over budget. What the experience taught me first hand is that you don’t realize just how much functionality you get “for free” with Access until you discover that you have to re-create it all from scratch in .net. Here are just a few of the things that Access includes that you don’t get with .net:

Multi-column combo boxes
Paging of data
Record locking / concordance handling
Different form types: Continuous, datasheet, etc.
Right-click filtering and sorting
Labels that move with controls

To work around the above, you end up either having to write your own controls, or purchase 3^rd party controls. When you go with 3^rd party controls, they come with their own set of problems – memory leaks, design issues, etc. With Access, you get everything right out of the box and can get busy solving the business problem.

Microsoft Access’ support for SQL Server means you can build enterprise-quality applications with rock-solid back-ends and still take advantage of rapid application development for the front-end UI.

Summary

In a matter of days, I can meet with a client, identify the business requirements, and build a prototype of the user-interface elements. Using the prototype I can estimate the time required to complete the project, quote the client based on that time estimate and deliver a working solution at a fixed price and in a very short time frame.

The end result: More features, more functionality, less time, lower cost. That translates to competitive advantage for me – and my customers.

About Blue Link

Blue Link builds ERP software solutions for small (typically owner-managed) companies. Blue Link’s flagship product: Blue Link Elite is a completely integrated accounting system with full CRM, Lead Management, Quoting, Sales Orders, Purchasing, Inventory Management, Work Flow Management, features and more.

Click here to view a demo of Blue Link Elite’s Order Entry system:

To learn more about Blue Link products, visit www.bluelink.ca.

The Access Show: Recap of SharePoint Developer Conference

2009-11-12T17:05:00Z

This is the second episode of The Access Show with Steve Greenberg & Ryan McMinn. They just came back from the sold-out SharePoint conference in Las Vegas where they launched Access Services and wanted to give you an update as well as introduce some customers that have been using the technical preview and building web databases.

Robert Hogg - Black Marble Consulting
Michael Matloub – Connolly, Inc

Subscribe to The Access Show: RSS, iPod/MP4, WMV (high quality), Zune, MP3

Access 2010 in the news

2009-11-11T22:59:00Z

John Durant from Office marketing is on The Knowledge Chamber with Robert Hess. He is talking about new features in Office that help developers. He starts his Access plug about 3 minutes into the talk. Good stuff.

Dick Moffat who has attended several of our developer kitchens recently wrote a blog post about Access 2010 and hybrid apps. He really likes the deployment features of rich client apps and SharePoint.

“In the end Access 2010 allows the traditional client-side Access developer to stage their entire application inside SharePoint on a site created by Access Services. When an Access application is “Published” to SharePoint all objects (tables, queries, forms, reports, etc.) get stored inside the SharePoint site.“

Michael Gannotti recently blogged from the SharePoint Developer Conference about how Access Services was one of his favorite additions to SharePoint. He approaches it from an IT perspective:

“As a former corporate systems architect for the 2nd largest mutual fund company in the world Microsoft Access was the bane of my existence. Whenever IT was perceived as too slow to respond to a groups request for a data centric application invariably the group would create an Access data base in response. While I understood the need to move forward with business and "get the job done" unfortunately it often meant that these one off data bases were built on a shared drive and not properly managed.”

Running a Command as Administrator in VBA

2009-11-11T16:23:32Z

We received a question the other day from someone who was using the Shell function in VBA to run a command in a command prompt. The command in question was netsh dhcp, but this could apply to any number of commands.

The original code was as follows:

Shell "c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /k netsh –c dhcp"

This code had worked for a while, but on Windows Server 2008 (and presumably Windows Vista and Windows 7), this command requires elevated permissions. There are likely a few ways to do this, but we’ll look at the runas command to make this work.

The runas command allows you to start a process as another user. For our purposes, the syntax is something like:

RUNAS /user:<UserName> program

To run netsh using the runas command, you could change the code as follows:

Shell "runas /user:administrator ""c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /k netsh –c dhcp"""

This will launch a command window and prompt you for the administrator password in the command window itself.

Another way to do this is to use "runas" as the verb for the ShellExecute API function as follows:

Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" _
(ByVal hWnd As Long, _
   ByVal lpOperation As String, _
   ByVal lpFile As String, _
   ByVal lpParameters As String, _
   ByVal lpDirectory As String, _
   ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long

Sub RunAsAdmin()
Const SW_NORMAL As Long = 1

    ShellExecute hWndAccessApp(), _
                 "runas", _
                 "c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe", _
                 "/k netsh -c dhcp", _
                 "c:\windows\system32", SW_NORMAL
End Sub

When you run the RunAsAdmin procedure, you should be prompted by Windows to run the specified command.

Displaying Data From Related Tables on a Form

2009-11-06T22:12:58Z

Today's guest blogger is Access MVP Scott Diamond. Scott is the principal of Diamond Computing Associates and the author of Microsoft Office Access 2007 VBA.

This is a very frequently discussed issue. But before I get into the methods, you need to understand one of the principles of relational databases. That principle is that data should exist in one place only. Having the same data in multiple tables is a violation of normalization. Related records are indicated by a Foreign Key within the record that holds the Primary Key value of the parent record. So when you want to have data from multiple tables on a data entry form, you set it up to display the data not store it in the form’s RecordSource.

There are basically four ways to display related data on a form; Subforms, the Column property, DLookups and Listboxes. Ill discuss each in turn and suggest where to use each.

Subforms

You can use a subform to display several fields from the related table. Create the form using the Subform wizard or create a separate form and place it on the main form as a subform (I generally create a separate form). Using the wizard, you go through the following steps.

Select whether to use an existing form or create a new one
If you are creating select the table and fields to use
Select the linking fields, usually accept the defaults Access proposes

You can customize the subform, so it looks like part of the main form, by removing record selectors, navigation buttons, borders etc. I use subforms when I want to display 4 or more fields from the related record. Another advantage of using subforms is where you have a One to Many relation. Using a Continuous Form or Datasheet View, you can display multiple related records at once.

Column Property

Generally Foreign Keys are entered by selecting the related value from a combobox. The combobox uses a query as it Rowsource. This query displays the records from that parent table. At the least, the query includes the primary key field as its bound column and a description field. However, you can add as many other fields from the table as you want. These fields can then be reference using the Column property. Click the Build button […] next to the Rowsource property to enter Query Design Mode. In Query Design Mode you can add tables and fields to the query. You can control what fields actually display in the pull down list by setting their Column Width. Setting the width of an individual column to 0" will hide that column (Note: Column widths are entered separated by a ; for each column listed in the column Count). The combobox will only display the first non zero length column after selection. The following properties of a combo are key to using combos in this way: RowSource (the list), Bound column (what's actual stored), Column Count (how many columns in the list, Column Widths (the size of each column in the list).

You can then set the ControlSource for an unbound control to:

[comboxname].Column(x)

Where comboxname is the name of the control and x is the number of the column in the query for that field. Note: the column count starts with 0 so the 3rd column is 2.

Since the combobox selects a single record, the Column property will also reflect a single record. I use this method if I need to display 3 or less values from the related record.

DLookups

DLookups allow you pull a value from a field in a specific record. It uses the syntax:

DLookup([fieldname],table/queryname,Criteria).

The Criteria is used to specify the record you want to return. Since the Comboxname will store the Foreign Key value you would use a criteria like:

[keyfield] = & [Comboboxname].

This would also be used as the controlsource of an unbound control. Each DLookup should only be returning data from a single record. If its possible that the DLookup might not find a matching record you should use it within a NZ (NullZero) function to prevent errors. I use DLookups when I need to pull data from different tables based on a key value.

Listboxes

A Listbox can have multiple columns with column headers. It also can be set to display multiple matching records. I will, sometimes, use a Listbox in place of a continuous form or datasheet subform. Listboxes will also display multiple matching records.

There are two exceptions to the rule of not repeating data in multiple tables. The first is the PK value. Obviously, that value has to be repeated as the FK to relate the records to each other. The other exception is time sensitive data. Sometimes you need to freeze data that will change over time. The best example of this is price data. For example: In an order entry application, you want to freeze the price at the time of the order. In such a case, you would have the Price field repeated in the OrderDetails table. Generally you would use the Column property for this and populate the control in the After Update event of the Products combo use code like:

Me.txtPrice = Me.cboProduct.Column(2)

These guidelines should help you build forms that preserve normalization and are well organized and easy for the user to use.

A better way to reference tab control pages

2009-11-06T02:38:54Z

In VBA, a common way to refer to the pages of a tab control is to use the Value property. However, Luke Chung, President of FMS Inc., recommends using the PageIndex property instead. Click here to find out why!

Send your Power Tips to Mike and Chris at accpower@microsoft.com.

Access featured on MSNZ Podcast

2009-11-04T16:49:02Z

Johanna and I were invited to do an interview for the MSNZ podcast at the SharePoint Conference. It just got posted, hope you enjoy it :)

Demo of Access 2010 room bookings database

2009-11-03T19:21:03Z

Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP) has published a great video demo of an application that he build for tracking meetings rooms. He even has built a fancy calendar control that renders in the web using data macros and bound controls. it is a good example of the types of things you can do in the browser with Access + Access Services.

Here is my favorite quote from the video:

I find this new table level programming model encourages designs that allow you to quickly react to your changing business needs. You can likely change your application in less time than it takes to have a meeting with your web and database development team. In fact, with Access I don’t think you need that team anymore.

Nice work Albert!

Why VBA still makes sense

2009-10-29T04:52:38Z

John Durant from the Office Developer marketing team is blogging about why VBA still makes sense. I expect the Access community is interested in what he has to say. Here is a little taste of the article:

Not infrequently I am asked, “So, should I use VBA? Is it going to be around in Office 2010? Is it supported? Should I migrate away from VBA now? Can I count on this technology?” (Here I go with a response!)

These are fair questions, because customers need to know that the software systems they employ are ones they can count on. There’s no question that the IT landscape in terms of teams, tools, software, networks, and so forth have changed dramatically since 1993, when VBA, or Visual Basic for Applications, made its way into Excel. But, VBA still has a place in this world. It still makes sense, and I’ll explain why.

First, here are some answers: 1) VBA is included in Office 2010 much as it was in Office 2007. 2) It is indeed supported 3) You should continue to use VBA where it fits the needs of our business and migrate only if the need arises.

Let me elaborate on #3 a little more, because it is the locus of most questions and issues.

…