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For sure, re: Access and a relational database tool being important. If somebody ever manages to make a web-based Microsoft Access clone (that actually works) t

For sure, re: Access and a relational database tool being important. If somebody ever manages to make a web-based Microsoft Access clone (that actually works) they'll make billions. It's fun help a "savvy" Excel user understand how a relational database can reduce their byzantine VLOOKUP-based fever dreams into simple joins. Typically if somebody can grok VLOOKUP-fueled nightmares they can grok SQL pretty quickly and will actually appreciate what it can do for them.

geoduck14 4y ago
Snowflake
bombcar 4y ago
>If somebody ever manages to make a web-based Microsoft Access clone (that actually works) they'll make billions. They did, they called it Salesforce.com
- FastMonkey 4y ago
  I think Salesforce is fine for large companies with teams of sales reps and a well staffed IT department, but it's overkill for most small to medium sized companies with just a few sales reps. If you can run on a creaky set of excel sheets, access would have been a far better and much more flexible solution. With minimal training it could be set up and run by a competent excel user. Salesforce admin is a pain in the ass. There's mandatory updates 3 times a year that require low level software development expertise in order for the admin to understand what will break, building new functionality essentially requires tens of thousands of dollars of consultant development, and god help you if you want to run a report that involves objects that don't have a direct parent-child relationship. I'm an analyst, and because I know how a database works, Salesforce stuff gets dumped on my desk all the time. I actively seek out alternative systems for everything it does, and would dearly love to see us drop this eye-watering expense.
  - Mandatum 4y ago
    > There's mandatory updates 3 times a year that require low level software development expertise in order for the admin to understand what will break If you're veering from defaults, you're doing Salesforce wrong. Even Salesforce's own Services team these days refuse to write custom code that'll break beyond default features.
ArnoVW 4y ago
Airtable?
DigiDigiorno 4y ago
There was Access Services in SharePoint but it was depreciated a few years ago. Unfortunately there are some very large companies that use Access in a shared drive instead. They make daily backups just in case there is data corruption.
- stormdennis 4y ago
  'just in case there is data corruption' In my experience that was guaranteed if any of the clients connected other than by ethernet. I've not done it but I understand that it's not difficult to have an Access front end for a SQL Server backend rather than the default mdb or accdb backend. All being Microsoft products the migration to SQL server is easy as I understand it. I find it hard to understand why large companies would not adopt this approach.
  - EvanAnderson 4y ago
    Access files are definitely super-fragile. That's not isolated to Access, though. Any time a file sharing protocol is used to host a database-- particularly with multi-user locking semantics-- I get the willies. I've done more "development" of Access-based applications over the years than I'd care to admit and, as a menu-driven front end for interaction with a client/server RDBMS (SQL Server, Postgres, etc) I think it's good cheap solution. Visual BASIC for Applications (VBA) can even do some powerful (and arguably ill-advised) stuff like directly calling Win32 APIs. It's an awesome prototyping tool in my experience. The typical Access solution I see in large corporate environments is something knocked-together by non-IT people. Once it gets to the level of needing to be upsized to a client/server RDBMS back-end the "real" IT department comes in and demands a purpose-built solution. Usually bureaucracy, disdain for Access, licensing costs for the client/server RDMS, taking away file servers, etc, end up killing it.
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      Application Packaging was in my past; can confirm the disdain for Access. There was a definite gap in IT Support though. Upon upgrading from Windows XP, Access was removed from the environment AND existing access databases were shoved into a database farm. But any new business needs for something similar IE "Hey IT, we want a little app just to store XYZ business info" fell on deaf ears - the response was always "Hire IT Company to build it and hand it over." which of course would cost tens of thousands rather than a handful and thus priced it out of existence. Which meant of course the business people started finding solutions OUTSIDE of IT Support purview....
ianceicys 4y ago
>If somebody ever manages to make a web-based Microsoft Access clone (that actually works) they'll make billions. Microsoft already has built that web-based access data-layer, it's called Dataverse - http://aka.ms/dataverse http://aka.ms/dataverse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKVxx_ghbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKVxx_ghbw

geoduck14 4y ago

Snowflake

bombcar 4y ago

>If somebody ever manages to make a web-based Microsoft Access clone (that actually works) they'll make billions. They did, they called it Salesforce.com

FastMonkey 4y ago
I think Salesforce is fine for large companies with teams of sales reps and a well staffed IT department, but it's overkill for most small to medium sized companies with just a few sales reps. If you can run on a creaky set of excel sheets, access would have been a far better and much more flexible solution. With minimal training it could be set up and run by a competent excel user. Salesforce admin is a pain in the ass. There's mandatory updates 3 times a year that require low level software development expertise in order for the admin to understand what will break, building new functionality essentially requires tens of thousands of dollars of consultant development, and god help you if you want to run a report that involves objects that don't have a direct parent-child relationship. I'm an analyst, and because I know how a database works, Salesforce stuff gets dumped on my desk all the time. I actively seek out alternative systems for everything it does, and would dearly love to see us drop this eye-watering expense.
- Mandatum 4y ago
  > There's mandatory updates 3 times a year that require low level software development expertise in order for the admin to understand what will break If you're veering from defaults, you're doing Salesforce wrong. Even Salesforce's own Services team these days refuse to write custom code that'll break beyond default features.

ArnoVW 4y ago

Airtable?

DigiDigiorno 4y ago

There was Access Services in SharePoint but it was depreciated a few years ago. Unfortunately there are some very large companies that use Access in a shared drive instead. They make daily backups just in case there is data corruption.

stormdennis 4y ago
'just in case there is data corruption' In my experience that was guaranteed if any of the clients connected other than by ethernet. I've not done it but I understand that it's not difficult to have an Access front end for a SQL Server backend rather than the default mdb or accdb backend. All being Microsoft products the migration to SQL server is easy as I understand it. I find it hard to understand why large companies would not adopt this approach.
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  Access files are definitely super-fragile. That's not isolated to Access, though. Any time a file sharing protocol is used to host a database-- particularly with multi-user locking semantics-- I get the willies. I've done more "development" of Access-based applications over the years than I'd care to admit and, as a menu-driven front end for interaction with a client/server RDBMS (SQL Server, Postgres, etc) I think it's good cheap solution. Visual BASIC for Applications (VBA) can even do some powerful (and arguably ill-advised) stuff like directly calling Win32 APIs. It's an awesome prototyping tool in my experience. The typical Access solution I see in large corporate environments is something knocked-together by non-IT people. Once it gets to the level of needing to be upsized to a client/server RDBMS back-end the "real" IT department comes in and demands a purpose-built solution. Usually bureaucracy, disdain for Access, licensing costs for the client/server RDMS, taking away file servers, etc, end up killing it.
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    Application Packaging was in my past; can confirm the disdain for Access. There was a definite gap in IT Support though. Upon upgrading from Windows XP, Access was removed from the environment AND existing access databases were shoved into a database farm. But any new business needs for something similar IE "Hey IT, we want a little app just to store XYZ business info" fell on deaf ears - the response was always "Hire IT Company to build it and hand it over." which of course would cost tens of thousands rather than a handful and thus priced it out of existence. Which meant of course the business people started finding solutions OUTSIDE of IT Support purview....

ianceicys 4y ago

>If somebody ever manages to make a web-based Microsoft Access clone (that actually works) they'll make billions. Microsoft already has built that web-based access data-layer, it's called Dataverse - http://aka.ms/dataverse http://aka.ms/dataverse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKVxx_ghbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKVxx_ghbw