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Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

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Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#341

Post by dragonsngoblins »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #315
bob1029 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to automate forms can absolutely revolutionize some businesses. Many business owners have no idea the extent to which automation is feasible here. I have seen fully manual paper process (printers/scanners/pen & ink/shredders/etc.) go into 100% digital realm and the impact it had on the business. It really is incredible the difference it makes. The most interesting factor was the fact that now that the inpu…

As a counterexample it's easy to get this wrong as well. In my EMT career we switched from doing run reports on paper to doing it on the computer. It was a nightmare. No attention to good UI principles had been paid. In the section on "What drugs did you administer?" we had to choose from a scrolling menu of perhaps 100 items for each drug we used (including oxygen which we used on everybody). Simply typing in their…

I imagine this was partly an attempt at data normalization. If you'd been allowed to type it in they would have had to worry about differences in spelling, capitalization, etc.

I'm not saying the solution they used was a good one mind, but I bet that was part of the motivation to implement it that way

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#342

Post by rad_gruchalski »

cr0sh wrote: post #329
motogpjimbo wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being able to automate forms can absolutely revolutionize some businesses I once worked for an insurance brokerage whose in-house CRM had started years before as an effort to automate paper-based forms. The company's business model was based on having their sales advisers fill out insurance policy application forms on their customers' behalf and originally this had been done using pen-and paper, which was obviously…

> While the idea of superimposing HTML input fields over a scanned paper form isn't one I've encountered before or since, that company was turning over $3M per month by the time I joined, so there is clearly mileage in the idea. You can also do this with PDF files, if you have Acrobat (or at least, it was possible - last time I played with it was several years ago - 2009-ish). You've probably seen "editable" PDF file…

> I forget was Adobe called it - but it worked rather well.

Livecycle Designer?

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#343

Post by Master_Odin »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #315
bob1029 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to automate forms can absolutely revolutionize some businesses. Many business owners have no idea the extent to which automation is feasible here. I have seen fully manual paper process (printers/scanners/pen & ink/shredders/etc.) go into 100% digital realm and the impact it had on the business. It really is incredible the difference it makes. The most interesting factor was the fact that now that the inpu…

As a counterexample it's easy to get this wrong as well. In my EMT career we switched from doing run reports on paper to doing it on the computer. It was a nightmare. No attention to good UI principles had been paid. In the section on "What drugs did you administer?" we had to choose from a scrolling menu of perhaps 100 items for each drug we used (including oxygen which we used on everybody). Simply typing in their…

Bad UI is basically consistent in all descriptions of all healthcare software. After working for a couple first responder outfits, I'm increasingly positive the companies who make this software do not have anyone on staff who have actually worked in the field, nor are they willing to interview people who have.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#344

Post by LegitShady »

perl4ever wrote: post #339
LegitShady wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use DAX in Power BI which I believe shares a common data model with excel. Dax is powerful but sometimes frustrating. When you need bidirectional relationships you end up making custom measures to keep the whole model performant. Depending on the scale of the problem being looked at it becomes a mess. But Power BI is the access of dashboard world...

Based on my limited experience, Power Pivot has a maddening lack of smooth integration with Excel. Power BI is a separate install, I believe, so not currently an option. I'm stuck with Office 2013 for the time being and can't upgrade or install anything. If I could use anything, I'd probably prefer to go back to SSRS. Maybe Informatica, or OBIEE or something. I'm biased by spending so many years writing SQL, but I fo…

Ya it's tough if you're stuck on 2013. Sometimes even random commands in excel are great and you find out they work at home but not at the version at work, or require office 365 (?!).

Access?

I recommend watching some youtube power bi videos for dax tricks. Lots of dax stuff on youtube. Or radacad.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#345

Post by Spooky23 »

mynegation wrote: post #160
wil421 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ServiceNow is a lot easier for admins/developers to use for workflow automation. In my opinion it’s a little easier than Salesforce but it could become bloated like Salesforce if it want already. Quickbase is another one I worked with but I was migrating workflows off of it. Quickbase was good for non IT people but not much better than Access or Excel.

A lot depends on what is actually implemented on top of these systems. I absolutely loathe servicenow because of multi page multilevel forms with horrible, ugly, no good UX I have to deal with.

The people who implement ServiceNow are usually, to put it mildly, idiots. It's usually combined with a religious conversion to some spin of ITIL, which is almost always by default implemented to facilitate a lowest common denominator operational outsourcing engagement.

The nasty forms are always a result of internal politics and bad governance. One client that I worked with had 8 different ways to represent a physical location. Each operational director in the organization had a unique system, and nobody mapped them.

If you put a real development team on the platform and the leadership gets it, it's an amazing tool.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#346

Post by Spooky23 »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #88
james_s_tayler wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Airtable considered like modern day Access?

Except it requires your IT department to contract it, which makes it a non-starter for most "shadow IT" uses where Access excels.

Plus, it's the normal shitty SaaS model for something that isn't enterprisey enough. So it's easy pickings for budget cuts.

Access is like a cockroach. It never dies as long as some Microsoft stuff is still around. The only thing that will kill it is subscription licensing -- Microsoft eventually take it away for Azure AirTableClone.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#347

Post by Spooky23 »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #198
codeulike wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly. Working in an IT Dept when someone said "ah they've built a spreadsheet to do it, but now they want us to add that functionality to the main DB" we'd all roll our eyes because it was another lashed-together thing that we would have to unpick and re-implement. But the fact is, if they'd come straight to us and asked us to do it instead of doing it in Excel first, they would have had nothing, for years an…

“But the fact is, if they'd come straight to us and asked us to do it instead of doing it in Excel first, they would have had nothing, for years and years.” Very true. As soon as us professionals take over the dev speed drops drastically and costs go up.

I killed a project a few years ago that had spent about $8M on some project to implement a pretty straightforward business process. No end was in sight. The catalyst was Access 2003 going end of life, and this little app doesn't work.

I don't know why one of a 3 BAs couldn't figure out WTF was happening and fixing it. We had an intern futz around with Access for a few weeks and it's been running fine to this day.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#348

Post by foobar1962 »

flukus wrote: post #171
foobar1962 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd put that on the DBAs. Once a week they should have been pulling down backups and testing for problems. They'd have also discovered the problem with the backups themselves.

90+% of the good use cases for filemaker are at places with no DBA's, it's meant to be a database tool for non-technical people and small businesses. If you had DBA's they'd just want to lock it down and eliminate the remaining 10% anyway.

If a company is claiming to have the largest database in the Southern Hemisphere, they'd have in-house developers (who double as FM dbas).

I'd be interested in knowing who the company was, and the metric they used to judge their database size. I worked on one that was 4GB data and >40GB binary files (photos, documents). Interestingly, when all the data was removed and the file was optimised it came to less than 2MB.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#349

Post by m45t3r »

alkonaut wrote: post #12

Is there a modern and/or open alternative to this? E.g a SQLite + electron or local web client thing where you could build a simple inventory or similar but you should also be able to scale it to client server when the need occurs 10 years down. Note that any number of cloud startups don’t count as an alternative to access. When these things start it’s as an excel sheet with data that no one will go through the enter…

I think Python could be a good alternative. It has modules in stdlib to interface with SQLite and Tk if you want to do an (ugly) user interface quickly. It does lack a good user interface to manipulate the database, though.

Re: Microsoft Access: The Database Software That Won't Die

#350

Post by aspectmin »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #315
bob1029 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to automate forms can absolutely revolutionize some businesses. Many business owners have no idea the extent to which automation is feasible here. I have seen fully manual paper process (printers/scanners/pen & ink/shredders/etc.) go into 100% digital realm and the impact it had on the business. It really is incredible the difference it makes. The most interesting factor was the fact that now that the inpu…

As a counterexample it's easy to get this wrong as well. In my EMT career we switched from doing run reports on paper to doing it on the computer. It was a nightmare. No attention to good UI principles had been paid. In the section on "What drugs did you administer?" we had to choose from a scrolling menu of perhaps 100 items for each drug we used (including oxygen which we used on everybody). Simply typing in their…

Did this software company come from a company with a three letter name? :)
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