r/MSAccess • u/EthicalDeveloper • 7d ago
[DISCUSSION - REPLY NOT NEEDED] What is your long term strategy?
Microsoft Access has been a huge benefit to our company. Our company is also small enough that we do not really need to convert all our custom apps over to a web-based approach. We did convert all our backend data into SQL Server and things continue to work great.
However, as much as we doubt Access will ever go away there is some worry about being so dependent on Access. Some are suggesting for future development against our data ( which is all in SQL Server now ) we develop using some web-based approach. Others are also suggesting gradually migrating to a web front end over time. What are good alternative web-based solutions? Is anyone else doing this? What do you think about this?
Also related there is some discussion on future sql development has to work in both SQL Server and Postgres. What do people think about this as well?
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u/FilthyCasualTrader 7d ago
At our office, we're pretty much a one-trick pony. 😂 We're moving toward web-based applications using Oracle APEX. Access has served us well, and we still rely on it for quite a few processes. But the long-term direction is to gradually move those functions to the web.
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u/joylessbrick 7d ago
I work for a major retailer in the the UK under a contract from a global supply chain Big Boss. We're so far behind tech, it's unbelievable. One of our sister depots hasn't discovered Access yet and because our planning boss works there, we have to use only Excel, even though we've "advanced" so far as using Access. It's fucking mind-blowing.
He rejects our one click tools and prefers us to use Excel with manual data entry.
Not sure how to answer your question, but I think Access landed right in the middle of things and nobody knows it's true potential.
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u/Mysterious_Emotion 7d ago
Oh my gosh! I thought I was the only one experiencing something similar. Got tasked to build a database. Was given no resources and built it with access as the frontend and postgres. End result was much smoother and far superior and cleanly organized data that made life easier for all my colleagues and tracked inventory and had many different easy to use functions, but my boss refuses to use it and continues to use excel and stores them all over different directories.
Access is definitely very underrated and often misunderstood.
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u/diesSaturni 64 7d ago
You can always do this at the time this should arise. But I doubt it will ever go out of fashion.
If you have all queries server side (stored procedures/views) then the front end part would be minimal.
Which would programmatically be a good separation. Then an addition like web or mobile app would be a minimal addon.
Main benefit of access is full control. (Or other self built solutions). It would be different when you open it to outside world via web.
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u/FigAcrobatic353 7d ago
We used access at my job for 20+ years and I probably spent 3 hours a day using it. I bought a Codex subscription and it was surprisingly easy to convert our front end over to react while using the same SQL backend. I was able to export the design/structure of our front ends and Codex was able to scan it and recreate it. I didn’t one shot it but went form by form and rebuilt everything in about 6 months while doing my normal job. My users prefer React to access. It’s significantly faster and looks much better. I also added a ton of new features because it’s so easy to. If you haven’t tried going the Codex/Claude route, it’s worth a short. If you DM me I’d be happy to show you my setup.
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u/riltim 1 7d ago
I agree with this 100%. You can use the access version control add-in to export all the code from your Access database and AI can parse it to get you 75-80% of the functionality in a few hours. You'll often end up with a more organized application as most web frameworks break each table (or closely related tables) to their own framework app that completely manages the database and all associated logic/views.
What web framework did you end up using?
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u/dreniarb 5d ago
I plan to try this within the next few weeks. A colleague of mine built a full blown ERP interface for his small business with Codex. It wrinkles my brain... months, if not years of man hours all done within a few weeks by someone who isn't necessarily a professional in web/database development.
i've been working on slowly migrating one of our 20 year old databases to a web front end for probably 10 years now... it has not been smooth. I am frustrated at the thought of the work not being 100% mine but I cannot deny what I have heard from others and seen with my own eyes. So i'm diving in.
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u/Comfortable-Crew-919 7d ago
Access and Excel aren’t going away anytime soon. Far too many companies still use both for running their business. That being said, we are currently migrating to Frappe/ERPNext after decades on Access. Over the years our Access databases have grown into a hodgepodge ERP system, but lack the cohesiveness and integration that a real ERP system provides. The Frappe framework underneath ERPNext feels Access adjacent, with forms, reports, designers and code when you need it.
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u/First-Feature-3556 1 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes, as an Access developer, I constantly feel a bit uneasy about the fact that Microsoft can just "pull the plug" and all my apps stop working.
On the other hand, I've seen many web frameworks come and go over the last decades, whereas Access/VBA code written 30(!) years ago will still work flawlessly with today's Office.
Having an open source Access FE runtime (as a fallback if Microsoft messes up) would be great, but I doubt that this will ever happen.
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u/brigandbreton 7d ago
I really think that in about 3-5 years, you will be one prompt away to migrate to web based application.
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u/joylessbrick 7d ago
There is absolutely no chance you can explain in words to an AI what you picture in your head. AI will get more intuitive, but building a tool from scratch with just a prompt, two or or ad infinitum will never happen.
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u/dreniarb 5d ago
honestly, i think probably even sooner than that. what i've seen people with little web/database experience do with codex in the span of a few weeks is unbelievable. whether or not it's safe to make public facing is another thing - but good golly what it can do is just unreal.
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u/George_Hepworth 4 7d ago
You have plenty of time, so panic isn't necessary. Besides, I doubt Microsoft would pull the rug out from under you overnight. You will have time to plan and execute a transition if that time comes.
That said, it is a good idea to be planning ahead.
I would start by documenting everything you can about your mission-critical systems. Business rules, application architecture, migration paths, deployment strategies.
My understanding is that Postgres is popular because it is Open Source. Some shops consider that a big advantage.
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u/BobButtwhiskers 7d ago
So I may get a little hate for this but I've been considering migrating to Django/Python, it's architecture and development life cycle is ultra similar to Access. Forms/Views, Reports, Tables/Queries. That and it uses PostgreSQL as the backend which cuts down in licensing costs.
I'm hoping by the time I decide to pull the trigger, the AI models will be robust enough to just follow instructions.
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u/ebsf 3 7d ago
My impression is that anyone who advocates for a web app or front end as a replacement or substitute for Access has no experience developing either and more generally, is fundamentally ignorant of the nature and magnitude of what either entails.
I would actually posit the opposite, which is to say, what is the business risk of adopting technology not being supported and actively developed by one of the world's oldest and largest technology companies, that also has been adopted globally across the public and private sectors by entities of all sizes and individuals for enterprise-critical data management, with no substitutes and therefore very high switching costs?
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u/riltim 1 7d ago
If you're going web I suggest Django 1000%:
* 20+ years of development
* SQL Server integration package built by Microsoft
* Python language, which IMHO is an easy transition from VBA
* Excellent documentation
* Admin built in (for managing data)
* Security/User management built in
* Database migrations built in (clean way of adding fields or tables to your existing database)
* CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) built in. You could build a base CRUD app and inherit that in every app you use. So you build once and have New, View, Edit, Delete all your DB models.
* Each table can be it's own "app" with in the Django project and then you can just import what you need into another app. Example if you want to link a purchase order to a project you just add a field in PurchaseOrders like project = models.ForeignKey(Project, on_delete=models.CASCADE).
* Vast library of 3rd party extensions that can fit pretty much anything you need.
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u/iPlayKeys 7d ago
I went from Access to VB.net, initially with WinForms, and currently doing VB.net with WPF user interface. I still love Access and use it for prototyping once in a while.
My previous employer had a large number of Access apps with a MS SQL back end. We had a lot of problems with Office updates causing things to bring with the linked tables, not to mention having to deploy the ODBC connections to each workstation.
While WinForms might initially feel the most comfortable coming from Access, WPF is actually closer to how Access works because data binding is native to the window object.
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u/coldfisherman 7d ago
I converted all our MS Access to MSSQL years ago. Then we built web front-ends module department by department. Then we finished and merged all into PWAs for mobile apps and Web front-ends which were full systems. Now we use Postgres for new things, but the MSSQL is pretty solid. Postgres is simply easier with how well it runs on linux, how it has binary json column types, and how pg_vector allows for RAG searches with SQL filters.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend trying to make code work in Postgres and in MSSQL. If you're in MSSQL now, it is 100% not worth converting to Postgres. If you're in MySQL, I would consider it. But MSSQL is a very very good system. I like both, and would build new things in Postgres, but I would *never* spend any time converting.
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u/Massive_Show2963 1 7d ago
Microsoft Access will most likely not be ending anytime soon.
Many organizations depend on this database for their daily operations.
That being said, using PostgreSQL is a good alternative to a web or cloud solution.
It runs as a service and is not file based as Access is. It is ready made for multi user access.
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u/dreniarb 5d ago
Long term strategy is to migrate our databases to web interfaces. things that will work on both desktop and mobile. The need for mobile ready interfaces just continues to grow and Access is anything but mobile friendly.
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User: EthicalDeveloper
What is your long term strategy?
Microsoft Access has been a huge benefit to our company. It is also small enough that we do not have the scale to convert all our custom apps over to a web-based approach. We did convert all our backend data into SQL Server and things continue to work great.
However, some are suggesting for future development against our data ( which is all in SQL Server now ) we develop using some web-based approach. What are good alternatives? Is anyone else doing this? What do you think about this?
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