Today’s guest writer is Wouter Steenbergen, one of the newest members of the Access Program Management team. Several months ago we updated the contacts template . Because of the overwhelming positive feedback it generated we updated the Assets , Student and Task management Access templates. Some of the modifications include: Updated color schemes, New getting started screen, Video’s to demonstrate how to use the database and modify the database, Improved some of the database functionality to make...

Today’s guest writer is Mary Chipman. Mary is a programmer-writer for the Data Programmability team at Microsoft and co-author of the classic Microsoft Access Developer's Guide to SQL Server . Table-valued parameters (TVPs) in SQL Server 2008 provide an easy way to marshal multiple rows of data from a client application to SQL Server without requiring multiple round trips or special server-side logic for processing the data. TVPs come in handy when you want to code explicit transactions inside of...

Listable.org is a usefully little site where users are making and sharing lists of data. Everything from US State Names to Most Commonly Used Passwords . If you have some favorite sites for getting data, leave a comment.

We have been getting a bunch of email from customers about using ADP’s with SQL Server 2008 and wanted to give everyone and update and some guidance. Access 2007 ADP’s will run against SQL Server 2008 but do not support designing server objects (tables, views, stored procedures, functions and relationships). SQL Server 2008 shipped after Office 2007 SP1 and after we had locked down all the fixes for Office 2007 SP2 (coming out in a few months). If you rely on the design features of ADP’s...

Recently, over 30 professional Access developers had a sneak peak at Access 14 during Access 14 Developer Kitchen . The event provided valuable insight to the Access team and resulted in some useful changes. Next is to gather feedback from Access business users who are not professional/expert developers. The team is holding an Access IW (Information Worker) Workshop on the Redmond, WA campus in February (exact date TBD). This two-day conference and usability study is for Information Workers (especially...

Access Developer Extensions 2007 has been updated and is now live on Microsoft.com. Here is a link - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d96a8358-ece4-4bee-a844-f81856dceb67 Highlights of the updates: Package Solution Wizard A wizard that creates a Windows Installer Package (MSI) to install your database and any supporting files and optionally includes the Access 2007 Runtime, or prompts the user to download the Access 2007 Runtime. Updated for packaging databases with international...

We are always proud of the tools customers make and sell around Access. Our friend Brandon send this update in along with a special offer for the blog readers. OpenGate Software launched a new tool to help Access users create their database schema using a simple Q&A interface. The product, Designer for Microsoft Access , takes a user’s input and then creates the tables, fields, and all the necessary relationships and keys automatically. They are offering a free license of their Starter edition...

A few months ago we solicited feedback about a new bug tracking template that was in development. We got lots of great feedback and I’m happy to announce the template is available in the Access Getting Started screen in the business category and on Office Online . There are several videos available that help you get started using it: Configure the Bugs template   Use the Bugs template Ben Hodes (the template author) has a real knack for narration. We expect him to get a new job offer from MSNBC...

The last few days I have pinged by several people asking about the SharePoint Offline functionality in the runtime. It seems like more and more people are starting to discover the new SharePoint link table and offline functionality. The short answer is—this isn’t supported. IOW - DoCmd.RunCommand acCmdToggleOffline is not intended to work in the runtime. If you have a need for offline functionality then the users of your application must have a full version of Access. I heard of people rolling code...

I want to thank everyone who participated in our last thread on backwards compatibility. There is lots of great discussion about how the decisions we make will impact your business. Folks are reading it and digesting the feedback. Again, thanks. Recently, I came across a great article that compares Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 performance by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on ZDNet. He put the three operating systems through a series of real-world tests to find out which one was fastest. Adrian picked...