Application Development with Microsoft Access

Microsoft's Access is a handy tool for generating reports and for managing small databases. There are benefits to using Access to manage data, but its use should be limited to smaller projects with data that is neither sensistive nor mission critical.

Benefits of using Microsoft Access

  • Mature platform that is well supported by Microsoft
  • Simplifies creating tables, queries and data entry forms
  • Excellent tool for creating reports, including mailing labels
  • Cheap, as it comes with certain versions of MS Office
  • Integrates well with other MS Office applications and with SQL Server
  • Can hold large volumes of data
  • Can be used as a 'front-end' only using SQL Server to hold the back-end data
  • Easy to import data from a number of different formats - Excel, text, CSV


Reasons to not use Microsoft Access

  • Security is a big concern, as the data file(s) can be copied or deleted
  • Concurrency, or handling multiple users accessing the same record, can be challenging
  • There is a maximum size to the files that cannot be exceeded
  • Performance can be problematic as file size increases
  • The simplicity of creating tables and entry forms can be a problem as untrained staff can violate data standards and principles