Is Access right for my organisation?

[Guest]

I am currently reviewing the database situation in my company and I'm not
sure if Access is the right application for us.

Approximately 20 users from around 6 different departments will need to the
database. All will be creating customer records, but only a dozen or so
users will be inputting other data (primarily related to the services they
perform for thier customers). Hence the first issue is networking/shared
access (all users are currently networked and can access shared Word
documents, Excel files, etc). Is it possible to make the database accessible
to this many users at any one time?

Secondly, my organisation has approximately 30,000 customers of whom around
90% are simply contacts, with little or no service history. Almost a
telephone directory / address book situation. In addition, we are looking to
include on the database an extensive email list of customers (simply
recording basic contact details) who will receive a bi-monthly emailed
newletter. Will Access be able to run smoothly and swiftly with this many
records within it?

Lastly, in view of the above, do I need to employ a specialist consultant
who is skilled in setting up multi-user databases, and brief him on our full
requirements. I guess the alternative is to use the Access Wizards, but my
experience of Access is minimal and my company can't afford to screw this up!

Many thanks for any assistance.

 

[Adam]

Hi Simon,

Access can do all of the above just fine !

As you have minimal knowledge of Access I would employ a consultant to
undertake this work for you.

The wizards won't meet your requirements alone, plus you'd probably be
looking in import your existing contacts to the tables via a csv file.

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

Simon,

Wrong question... I would put it as: Is Access right for the job?

Well, based on the answers to your specific questions I would say Access
can do it:
20 users over a LAN: no sweat
30,000 records in a table: there is no particular limit to the number of
records in a table, the limit is the overall database size (2GB); I have
working datatabses with 6-7 hundred thousand records in a table (among
other tables) and the size is ~60MB, and I've heard of quite bigger
numbers, so you should have no issue there.
E-mailing out of Access: yes.

In a nutshell, Access is probably capable of it; I say probably because
you are not specifying those "other" things you want. If you are going
to get a contractor to do it, do get a couple of offers, but have a look
at the (light) CRM packages offered out there, as it looks like this is
more or less what you are after! If you are looking for some serious
functionality, there's a chance it's cheaper to buy and have customized
a CRM package, than have your custom one developed.

HTH,
Nikos

 

[Guest]

Thanks Nikos.

I have been looking at off the shelf CRM packages, as I've come to the same
realisation that essentially this is what we're after. However, they don't
seem to be very forgiving, in the sense that they might not fulfil all the
needs we have. Access by comparison seems to be much more flexible and
adding functionality further down the line seems relatively easy.

I've requested some demo disks (on 28 days) of both Access and a CRM
package. I'll test them both on my PC, consult with the manufacturers
regarding networking issues and make a decision.

Essentially though, my question has been answered. Access can do what we
need it for.

Thanks again,

Simon

 

[Larry Daugherty]

Hi Simon,

It sounds like Access is suitable for the loads you describe and a
bare bones contact management application is pretty simple to create.
It's those extras that don't fit into the bare bones system that
really get you because you have to start designing the system around
ALL of the things it will do.

If your company is going to depend on this application for day to day
operations then I wouldn't take it on as a learning vehicle. The
Wizards are great labor savers but there's an awful lot more to know.

I suggest that you hire an Access consultant who has several years of
experience designing and rolling out multi-user applications in
networked environments.

One thing not mentioned yet is the cost of having Access. If not all
users will ordinarily have Access on their desktops then it's worth
considering the relative costs of using the Access developer tool kit
and deploying the Access runtime version. If so, you'll also want
those skills and capabilities in your consultant.

HTH

 

[David Epsom Dot Com Dot au]

If you are going to be hiring a consultant, definitely look around and
see what kind of a consultant you can get. With 20 users, you will
need a consultant with some experience.

Access comes with both a Jet (shared file) and a SQL Server
database engine. In fact, MS has the SQL Server database engine
available for free download at present. 20 users is well within
the design limits of the Jet engine, but might be pushing the limits
of the /free/ version of SQL Server (each version of the free version
of SQL Server has been slightly different in that regard).

You also need to decide which client technology you will use. Access
is a client technology with a rich Forms engine, Report engine, stored
procedure language (VBA), and Design Environment. The client
technology works with either the Jet database engine, or, the SQL
Server engine. Conversely, both engines work with several different
client technolgies, notably Excel, .Net, and Access.

It looks like the consultant that you get will need to have experience
with the client technology you choose: in fact, you might choose the
client technology on the basis of the recomendation of the consultant
that you choose. In any case, in choosing a consultant, you will
want to go with the database engine of choice for that consultant.

If you choose a consultant on the basis of experience and client
technolgy, you may wind up with the database technology choosen
by default. Both Access/Jet and SQL Server can handle the kind
of load you are talking about, so either should be acceptable.

5 years ago, a compatent Access database programmer to do this
would have been much cheaper than the combination of the client
programmer and the SQL Server dba. Also, the SQL Server licence
would have been much more expencive than just using Access/Jet.
Now, there is a SQL Server /free/ edition, there are a lot more
people with SQL Server experience, and many of the hard-core
Access programmers have moved on to SQL Server anyway.


Finally: (!) Regarding off-the-shelf CRM. There used to be source
code available for OTS CRM using Access. Many of these
products are no longer for sale, but you should certainly keep
looking. I know you can still get source for Access accounting
solutions, and CRM might still be available.

Access wizards are not enough to set up a solution with 20 users
creating customer entry records. It would be ok for a demo,
but you need a db person to cast an eye over the database
design, and the client design may need to take acount of stuff
like record locking and identy insert/auto number issues.

(david)