The next step - Access97 to ?

[WSF]

I am currently using Access 97 to provide a reporting module in a
client's service system. There is a job service module from another
provider in Access 97 (shared use on a networked FE MDE using runtime on
each operators PC) and my reporting Module also in Access 97. Whilst the
service module has widespread usage throughout the organisation my
reports module is restricted to management only. As these managers all
have full Office installs on their PC's I have set them up with separate
FE MDE's running on their full installs of Access, rather than runtime.

There is another separate proprietary Financial module written in VB.
All three have separate FE's from the BE's.

The Job service module has a combination of BE Access 97 MDB tables and
SQL tables and therefore so does my report Module.
The Financial Module has SQL BE.
My Report program also does some writes to both the Access and SQL BE
tables.

It all works very well - very much an "if it ain't broke don't fix it"
set-up.

I would like to progress and move forward to the latest version of
Access(?). I had deliberately avoided Access 2000 because at the time it
was not getting good press.

I would consider I have strong skills in Access / Excel and Word VBA and
come from a user perspective in my work. It is very well received by the
clients for its friendly, fast and functional interface and reporting
content and style.

I have the participants in this newsgroup to thank for much of that, my
having frequented it for some years now.

My questions are these:

What benefits if any would their be in my updating my Report program to
the latest version of Access - to my clients and me.

How would I go about introducing / integrating it into the current
scheme of things - in this particular client's situation I doubt they
would wish to upgrade their current systems beyond the current 97 - at
least for the foreseeable future.

Would a latest Access runtime version operate on a PC that had Office 97
(or 2000 in some cases) installed? There is a mix of OS - Win2K to XPP.

Obtaining the latest developer edition would be a not inconsiderable
investment for me.

Any comment appreciated.

WSF

 

[Rick Brandt]

I am currently using Access 97 to provide a reporting module in a client's
service system. There is a job service module from another provider in Access
97 (shared use on a networked FE MDE using runtime on each operators PC) and my
reporting Module also in Access 97. Whilst the service module has widespread
usage throughout the organisation my reports module is restricted to management
only. As these managers all have full Office installs on their PC's I have set
them up with separate FE MDE's running on their full installs of Access, rather
than runtime.

There is another separate proprietary Financial module written in VB.
All three have separate FE's from the BE's.

The Job service module has a combination of BE Access 97 MDB tables and SQL
tables and therefore so does my report Module.
The Financial Module has SQL BE.
My Report program also does some writes to both the Access and SQL BE tables.

It all works very well - very much an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" set-up.

I would like to progress and move forward to the latest version of Access(?).
I had deliberately avoided Access 2000 because at the time it was not getting
good press.

I would consider I have strong skills in Access / Excel and Word VBA and come
from a user perspective in my work. It is very well received by the clients
for its friendly, fast and functional interface and reporting content and
style.

I have the participants in this newsgroup to thank for much of that, my having
frequented it for some years now.

My questions are these:

What benefits if any would their be in my updating my Report program to the
latest version of Access - to my clients and me.

How would I go about introducing / integrating it into the current scheme of
things - in this particular client's situation I doubt they would wish to
upgrade their current systems beyond the current 97 - at least for the
foreseeable future.

Would a latest Access runtime version operate on a PC that had Office 97 (or
2000 in some cases) installed? There is a mix of OS - Win2K to XPP.

Obtaining the latest developer edition would be a not inconsiderable
investment for me.

Any comment appreciated.

My advice would be to look at the "What's New?" articles for both Access 2002
and 2003 and see if there is anything there that appeals to you (or your users).
In my opinion the post 97 versions have not introduced anything substantial
enough to outweigh the disadvantages that they introduce.

By all means obtain it, play around with it, and learn the differences (good and
bad), but install it alongside your copy of 97 rather that on top of it. If
your company decides that all Access apps should move to the latest version you
will be positioned to do so. In the meantime you will be able to deliver apps
in both versions for those occasions where you need to do that.

I have 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003, but I develop almost exclusively in 97 and then
convert upwards for users that need 2000. Since 2002 and 2003 can use a 2000
file I technically only need the two newest ones for testing purposes.

If upgrading is YOUR idea then management and users are going to expect some
bang for their buck and trouble. I don't believe you will find much of that.
If they agree with that sentiment then you end up looking bad.

 

[WSF]

Thanks for the comments, Rick.
I take your points and will probably stick with what I know!

WSF

 

[chakatheapeman]

ADP is good for me

I like access for developing internal business applications. I think it was prudent for me to abandon the Java enterprise application models, when I went back to developing internal applications. Access is good for me for several reasons…

1. In our small business our apps need to be more powerful then efficient.
2. Working within the access framework stops some feature creep
3. Laying out forms and reports is faster and productive then a non visual IDE

Access 2003 allowed for me to work more closely to our SQL server by utilizing stored procedures. I prefer to use SQL servers due to their speed, reliability, transactional support and integrated backup.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6329_11-5065669.html#

My Universal MSDN subscription allows me to compile and distribute assess with a runtime. This works ok, it doesn’t prompt users about any errors of any sort. Extra effort has to be exerted to make sure you handle them. Especially things like required fields and constraints.

My biggest beef with access adp is how it restricts the developer from getting the ado errors collection. When you use the access connection you just jet some generic error message. In access 2000 you might be better off because you can declare an ado result set with events and capture the error. However, this still may not work for you because ado has an errors collection that has multiple errors, access will only let you get the first error in that collection. When I migrated to 2003 I could no longer get these errors at all.

To solve this problem you have to make a transaction that tests what access is about to do that doesn’t commit, running it before access executes against the sql server. All this has to be done to catch a constraint. So if you need to make an app for resale, this whole scenario might justify using a different application architecture.

 

[Larry Linson]

Thanks for the comments, Rick.
I take your points and will probably
stick with what I know!

Well, one of his comments was " By all means obtain it (Access 2002 or
2003), play around with it, and learn the differences (good and bad), but
install it alongside your copy of 97 rather that on top of it. If your
company decides that all Access apps should move to the latest version you
will be positioned to do so. In the meantime you will be able to deliver
apps in both versions for those occasions where you need to do that."

I think that is very good advice. It never hurts to keep up to date on what
is going on in your favorite database software. There wasn't very much
Access-specific change between Access 2002 and 2003, but the Office Help
system interface changed from local-primary to online-primary, and it would
be worth getting used to that, so you won't "pile that on top of" any other
changes when/if you do move to a later version.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP