Access 2007 has a nifty feature that allows you to collect data via email . Recently, I got the following question from a user: Is there any way to automate the creation, sending and receiving of Emails through the Data Collection capability of A07 using VBA?  The wizard is too complex for the users I am working with. Here is the reply we got from the developer—it isn’t for the faint at heart… There isn’t a straight-forward way to do this and it isn’t officially supported. It’s possible if you...

I love to hear what problems you solve or opportunities you exploit with Access—it is amazing what self-taught users are able to accomplish. There is a interesting thread What do you use Microsoft Access for? on UtterAccess . Here is an interesting Wordle tag cloud of the thread (Database, Microsoft and Access are filtered out because they were so dominate in the cloud): Access touches people’s lives in so many ways… Here are a few of my favorite quotes from self-taught users, highlighting their...

We recently announced details about the SharePoint Conference 2009 . It will be held in Las Vegas, NV on October 19-22. The conference is deeply centered on the SharePoint “14.” I expect we will have some good sessions that include Access 14 content as well. I know—the conference out many, many months but I love helping our readers save money as there is a 25% discount (save $300 USD) for the first 500 attendees. See you there!

We have an internal Access Discussion alias that is used for by MS employees to get answers to their questions. Recently I saw a good question about how to refresh SharePoint lists. Here is the problem… SharePoint lists that are linked to Access 2007 database files will not reflect structural changes to the lists in SharePoint.  Once someone changes list schema, you can continue to use the linked lists in Access for read-only purposes without even knowing that the list structure has changed...

Few months ago went fishing for people to come to Microsoft and participate in the Access 14 developers kitchen. The event was a great hit—we had people come from all over including Germany, United Kingdom, South Africa, Puerto Rico, and US. People spent 4 days with us learning about our 14 plans and providing feedback—some has already made it into the latest builds. Steven Thomas recently conducted a short interview with me about the event. Thanks Steven.