Top 10 benefits of Access 2010

1 Get started faster and easier than ever before. Harness the power of the community in Access 2010. Build on database templates created by others and share your own designs. Use new prebuilt database templates available on Office Online, designed for frequently requested tasks, or select from community-submitted templates and customize them to meet your specific needs.

Microsoft Access 2010 Features Released

Wednesday July 15, 2009

As many of you know, I've been trying to obtain details on the upcoming release of Access 2010. I received a response from Microsoft this afternoon that provides some good insight. First, a few key details:

·         The Ribbon is here to stay.

·         Access will NOT be a component of the new Office Web Applications Suite

·         There will be advanced web form functionality included in Access 2010

I also received the following detailed list of new features that will be included in Access 2010:

·         Design for Web mode: You can create and publish your database to the Web, make sure it is fully Web compatible, and share it with the world using Backstage view in Microsoft Access 2010.

·         Web Form and Report design surface: Quickly build and modify Web forms and reports. The Microsoft Access 2010 table-based forms layout surface makes it easy.

·         Macro Designer Improvements: The Macro Designer makes it easier and more intuitive to build out logic in your applications. Write your own enforcement rules, type in plain text and it automatically converts it to the right XML code.

·         Expression Builder Improvements: Ensure success when building out your critical "if-then" statements. The Expression Builder makes it easier and more intuitive to build out expressions when creating applications. With Intellisense™, just type in plain text, and it will autocomplete it, helping to significantly reduce errors.

·         Data Macros: Use Data Macros to attach logic to your data — centralizing the logic on the table, not the form. Write your logic with ease using Macro Designer, and make it snappy with Data Macros.

·         Office Themes: Get more options for professional designs consistently across your Access databases with new selections of themes in Microsoft Access 2010.

·         Web Browser Controls: The Web Browser control is great for enabling Web 2.0 content integrated inside an Access Form.

·         Web 2.0-like Controls: Bring a fresh and modern look to your applications with new buttons and tabs. It's never been easier to create Web style navigation.

·         Pre-Built Application Templates: Start off with a pre-built application to enable a starting point before customizing to your needs. This also helps ensure your base application has been built correctly and optimized for reuse across your organization.

·         Backstage View: Microsoft Backstage view replaces the File menu to help you get to the tasks you need and complete your work more efficiently. With Backstage view, you get a single location for essential information about your database such as permissions and version information. You also will find new and existing templates, and sharing options including print, online and e-mail.

·         Ribbon Improvements: Find the right commands quickly so you can focus on results.

·         Trend Spotting: Now you can apply Conditional Formatting into your Microsoft Access 2010 reports. Both you and your audience will more easily spot trends, helping you make better decisions. Data bars help you communicate your analysis more clearly in professional-looking data bar charts.

·         Performance Improvements: Performance improvements speed up the creation of Microsoft SharePoint lists, and kick your ability to open up data records into high gear.

·         SharePoint Business Connectivity Services (BCS) Support: Include Web services and line-of-business applications data — right into the applications you build with Microsoft Access 2010. This helps keep your systems safe by letting you view data that is already trusted and validated by your IT staff.

·         Community-Submitted Templates: Get help and inspiration from your peers. It's easy for anyone to build an application if you start with a pre-built template from the Community-Submitted Templates. Bring in other contributors, and you're bound to uncover just the thing you're looking for — or the perfect thing you didn't even know you were looking for.

·         Publish to Access Services: Leverage the power of the Web to reach more people in your organization without a Microsoft Access client. Store data and applications on a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, and your system administrator will have just a single point of maintenance.

·         Work Offline Improvements: Make changes to your forms, reports, queries and macros offline, and then upload them to your Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 when you're reconnected. All your changes and updates are automatically synchronized.

What are your thoughts on these changes? Will Access 2010 improve upon Access 2007

Microsoft Office Access 2007

Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of applications, included in the Professional and higher editions or sold separately.

Access stores data in its own format based on the Access Jet Database Engine. It can also import or link directly to data stored in other Access databases, Excel, SharePoint lists, text, XML, Outlook, HTML, dBase, Paradox, Lotus 1-2-3, or any ODBC-compliant data container, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL. Software developers and data architects can use it to develop application software, and "power users" can use it to build simple applications^{[citation needed]}. Like other Office applications, Access is supported by Visual Basic for Applications, an object-oriented programming language that can reference a variety of objects including DAO (Data Access Objects), ActiveX Data Objects, and many other ActiveX components. Visual objects used in forms and reports expose their methods and properties in the VBA programming environment, and VBA code modules may declare and call Windows operating system functions. VBA with .NET Framework can be considered a successor to Access in the sense that it can produce web front-ends for databases and includes much of the functionality of VBA in Access.

Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Uses 3 Features 4 Development 4.1 Split Database Architecture 4.2 Access to SQL Server Upsizing (SQL as a backend) 5 Protection 6 File extensions 7 Versions 8 Competing software 9 References 10 External links

This database contains various examples of Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML) of both DAO and SQL.


The examples here were taken largely (though not completely) from "Access Database Design && Programming" by Steven Roman and published by O'Reilly.
There are 5 modules:
Class 10: Shows general examples of Data Access Objects (DAO)
Class 11: Illustrates DAO DDL techniques
Class 12: Illustrates DAO DML techniques
Class 13: Shows how to use embedded SQL DDL
Class 14: Shows how to use embedded SQL DML

Download

Access 97 (101 KB): Dao97.zip

Access 2000 DAO (144 KB): DAO2k.zip

CascadingComboBoxes.mdb (beginner)

This form illustrates how to restrict the value of one combo box based on the value of another. In this case, you choose the city, and you get a listing of just the zip codes available for that city.


It also shows how to get the asterisk (*) to show up in the RecordSource for the city, so you can choose all cities. When you choose the asterisk to list all zipcodes and then choose a zip, the corresponding City appears in the city control.

Download

Access 97 (42 KB): CascadingComboBoxes97.zip

Access 2000 (95 KB): CascadingComboBoxes2k.zip

BackUpWithCompact.mdb (intermediate)

This sample illustrates how to back up a database using the Compact Method. It creates a backup file called "BackUpWithCompact2kXX_XX_XXXX.mdb" with the X's representing the data. It puts this file in the same directory as the database. It also looks for the spreadsheet in the same directory.


Download

Access 2000 DAO (133 KB): BackUpWithCompact2k.zip

AppendValuesToExcel.mdb (intermediate)

This sample demonstrates how to append data from a database to an Excel Spreadsheet using Office Automation to find the next empty row in the spreadsheet.

The overall process:

1) Define Access and Excel object variables
2) Open Excel sheet as an Excel Object
3) Find the last row of data

4) Write data from Access query to Spreadsheet

5) Save and close spreadsheet

Look in the "basExport" module for the relevant code.

Note: This requires a spreadsheet called "ExportSpreadsheet.xls" (included with the sample) exist in the same directory as the application. Also requires references set to DAO 3.6 and Excel
Download Access 2000-2003 Version: AppendValuesToExcel.zip

CalculateSpec.mdb (intermediate)

This sample automatically calculates the Start Bit of an ImportSpec by adding the Start Bit and Length of the previous record.




Download

Access 2000 (25 KB): CalculateSpec2k.zip

Books.mdb (intermediate)

Books.mdb" and it's companion database "Books_be.mdb", make up a simple personal book inventory database. It uses the "BoilerPlate.mdb" sample to create a complete application.




Note: Put both databases in the same physical directory. If you do, the front-end (Books.mdb) will always find the tables in the back-end (Books_be.mdb).



Download

Access 97 (80 KB): Books97.zip

Access 2000 DAO (102 KB): Books2k.zip

BoilerPlate.mdb (intermediate)

This sample is a useful template for an application.


It has a number of standard forms for maintaining reference tables, viewing reports, checking database locations, and users logged on.

The tables, MainDataEntry form, and reports are just to show how the template works
This sample is a useful template for an application.




It has a number of standard forms for maintaining reference tables, viewing reports, checking database locations, and users logged on.



The tables, MainDataEntry form, and reports are just to show how the template works



Download

Access 97 (191 KB): BoilerPlate2_97.zip

Access 2000 DAO (115 KB): BoilerPlate2k.zip

AutomatingPowerpoint.mdb (intermediate)

A simple example of automating the creation of a Powerpoint Presentation from Access.




Download

Access 2000 (544 KB): AutomatingPowerpoint2k.zip