Today's guest blogger is Access MVP Glenn Lloyd of Argee Services. Check out his Office help blog and Access Help and Tutorial Blog.

There are certain features that virtually every Access database application includes. Certain tables like people’s names and addresses, certain forms for managing lookup lists and many to many relationships, custom splash screens, and on and on. Particular developers may prefer ‘off-standard’ property settings for forms and reports and for the database itself. Depending on the general type of databases a developer focuses on, the developer might set the same references in every project.

Manually importing these common features can take a fair amount of time. Access 2007 introduced the ability to reduces that startup overhead literally to no time at all. All you need to do is put together a default Blank database template and store it in the right location. Then for your next new project create a new Blank database. The new database will inherit absolutely everything that the template includes. It will have exactly the custom property settings that you need.

Including custom property settings in prototype forms and reports in the template will continue to yield time saving dividends, beyond what you have already saved in the creation of the database itself, because each form and report you create from those prototype objects will be populated with exactly the settings you want. Allen Browne, from whom I first learned of this capability, has some excellent tips on template contents and how to set up the template this article http://allenbrowne.com/ser-43.html

Give the idea a try. You will be glad you did!

Glenn

Send your Power Tips to Mike and Chris at accpower@microsoft.com.