Microsoft Access Programmer In Phoenix Arizona

Microsoft Access Programmer Phoenix Arizona

How Powerful Is Microsoft Access?

Many people are not aware of the programming power within the Microsoft Access database program. Many people see Access software as quite complex and complicated so it should be difficult to use. Many people feel Access is serious developer product intended for no one but experienced application developers.

This article is a “myth buster” for Microsoft Access. Microsoft is one of the most powerful database programs available. MS Access is certainly the most affordable business database application. After reading the article, you will know when Access is the tool for you, and when it makes sense to explore other software. Need a Microsoft Access database programmer? Call us at (602)428-1736 for a complimentary consultation.

Microsoft Access is a very flexible product. You can use Access to develop a personal application, or to develop an enterprise-wide corporate application. Access offers a variety of features for different database needs. You can use Access to develop these general types of applications:

• Small-business applications
• Personal applications
• Corporation-wide applications
• Departmental applications

Who is the best custom Access programmer in Phoenix Arizona? The answer is easy, MS Access Solutions is your Best Access Solutions providing expert custom Access database programmer services in Phoenix AZ plus Access database consultant services.

Microsoft Access Is An Excellent Enterprise Client Server Application

Access Programmer Services Categories For Person and Business

Access as a Development Platform for Personal Applications

At its most fundamental level, you can use Access to develop simple personal database-management systems. I caution people against this idea, though. People who buy Access hoping to automate everything from their personal exercise schedule to their kids’ after-school activities are often disappointed. The problem is that Access is deceptively easy to use. The excellent built-in wizards make Access look like a product that anyone can use. After answering a series of questions, you have finished application switchboards, data-entry screens, reports, and the underlying tables that support them.

In fact, when Microsoft first released Access, many people asked if I was concerned that my business as a computer programmer and trainer would diminish because Access seemed to let absolutely anyone write a database application. Although it’s true that you can produce the simplest of Access applications without any thought of design and without a single line of code written by the user, most applications require at least some designing and custom code. Corporate and some small businesses need the power that Access provides with the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming language.

As long as you’re satisfied with a wizard-generated personal application with only minor modifications, no problems should occur. However, when you want to substantially customize a personal application – that’s when problems develop.

Access as a Development Platform for Small-Business Applications

Access is an excellent platform for developing an application that can run a small business. Its wizards let developers quickly and easily build the application’s foundation. The ability to build code modules allows developers to create code libraries of reusable functions, and the ability to add code behind forms and reports allows them to create powerful custom forms and reports.

The main limitation of using Access for developing a custom small-business application is the time and money involved in the development process. Many people use Access wizards to begin the development process but find they need to customize their application in ways they can’t accomplish on their own. Small-business owners often experience this problem on an even greater scale. The demands of a small-business application are usually much higher than those of a personal application. Many doctors, attorneys, or other professionals call me after they reach a dead end in the development process. They’re always dismayed at how much money it will cost to make their application usable.

Access Development Platform For Business Departmental Applications

Access is perfect for developing applications for departments in large corporations. It’s relatively easy to upgrade departmental users to the appropriate hardware: for example, it’s much easier to buy additional RAM for 15 users than it is for 4,000! Furthermore, Access’s performance is adequate for most departmental applications without the need for client/server technology. Finally, most departments in large corporations have the development budgets to produce well-designed applications.

In larger businesses, there is often a full time developer, who designs forms and reports or provides expert assistance for these tasks. This gives the department a sense of ownership because they have contributed to the development of their application. It also makes my life as a developer much easier. I can focus on the hard-core development issues, leaving some of the form and report design tasks to the local talent.

Access as a Development Platform for Corporation-Wide Applications

Although Access might be best suited for departmental applications, it can also be used to produce applications that are distributed throughout the organization. How successful this endeavor is depends on the corporation. There’s a limit to the number of users who can concurrently share an Access application while maintaining acceptable performance, and there’s also a limit to the number of records that each table can contain without a significant performance drop. These numbers vary depending on factors such as the following:

• How much traffic already exists on your business network?
• What types of tasks will the users of the application perform? Are they entering data, querying, running reports, or other complex calculations and data manipulation?
• How much memory (RAM) and how many processors does the server have?
• How the server is already being used? For example, are applications such as Microsoft Office being loaded from the server or from local workstations?
• Where are Access and your Access application run from – the server or the workstation?
• What network operating system is in place? Do you need to upgrade operating systems?

A general rule of thumb for an Access application that’s not client/server is that poor performance generally results with more than 10-15 concurrent users and more than 100,000 records. Remember, these numbers vary immensely depending on the factors mentioned, as well as on the definition of acceptable performance by you and your users.

Access programmers often misunderstand what Access is and what it isn’t when it comes to being a client/server database platform. We’re often asked, “Isn’t Access a ‘client/server’ database?” The answer is that Access is an unusual product because it’s a file server application out of the box, but it can act as a front end to a client/server database. In case you’re lost, here’s an explanation: If you buy Access and develop an application that stores the data on a file server in an Access database, Access performs all data processing on the workstation.

This means that every time the user runs a query or report, Access brings all the data over to the workstation and runs the query on the workstation machine. It displays the results in a datasheet or on a report. This process generates a significant amount of network traffic, particularly if multiple users are running reports and queries at the same time on large Access tables. In fact, such operations can bring the entire network to a crawl.

Access as a Development Platform For Enterprise-Wide Client Server Applications

A client/server database, such as Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle, processes queries on the server machine and returns results to the workstation. The server software itself can’t display data to the user, so this is where Access comes to the rescue. Acting as a front end, Access can display the data retrieved from the database server in reports, datasheets, or forms. If the user updates the data in an Access form, Access sends the update to the back-end database. You can accomplish this either by linking to these external databases so that they appear to both you and the user as Access tables, or by using techniques that access client/server data directly.

One of Access’s major advantages is its scalability. An application that begins as a small-business application running on a standalone machine can be scaled to an enterprise-wide client/server application. If you design your application properly, scaling can be done with little to no rewriting of your application. This feature makes Access an excellent choice for growing businesses, as well as for applications being tested at a departmental level with the idea that they might eventually be distributed corporation-wide.

Microsoft Access Programmers Phoenix Arizona

MS Access Solutions is now providing Microsoft Access Programmer services to all businesses in Phoenix Arizona and communities near Phoenix AZ.

Best Microsoft Database Programmers For Your Phoenix Arizona Business

Need help with your database? Contact us at MS Access Solutions, for expert Access programmer services in Phoenix Arizona, USA. Call us today at (602)428-1736 for a Free no-obligation consultation.

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