In the last post, I gave a quick overview of SharePoint, SharePoint lists, and how Access works on SharePoint. In this version, I'll show what happens when you move an Access database to SharePoint. Publish to SharePoint
Access has had a feature to "Upsize to SQL Server" for quite some time, and the "Move to SharePoint" feature in 2007 is very similar. It creates SharePoint lists for all the data, moves the data to those lists, and replaces the local tables in the database with remote tables linked to the newly created lists. The database behaves much like it did before, with some new functionality on the server, and potentially some client features no longer available. The move process is pretty simple, and starts from a local database to be moved. To move the database,
Windows 7 Professional Key, the user simply goes to the "External Data" tab, and selects "Move to SharePoint": This launches a simple wizard to move the database. The first step of the wizard allows the user to name a server to store the data. On the first step of the wizard,
Windows 7 Pro, there's a checkbox for uploading the database to the server as well. Checking this box moves the database front-end, wth all the forms and reports, to the server. Then when other users need it, it is automatically deployed to their desktops. To do this, the user must choose where the file lives on the server, generally in a document library. Clicking OK in the Save As dialog after choosing a location for the file returns the user to the first pane of the wizard, with the file's location noted. Clicking the "Next" button on the wizard starts the move. Access creates new lists for all of the tables in the database, copies the records into them, and rebinds the forms and reports to the linked tables. In addition, it creates a link to the User Information table on SharePoint, and moves the front-end database to the Shared Documents folder specified above. When the upload process completes, Access presents a dialog noting that everything got moved up. Clicking on the checkbox (if it appears) will present a description of what got moved and a way to view a report of any application functionality that will change as a result of the move. After the application has been moved,
Office Pro 2010 Key, it behaves much like it did before. Because the front-end is now shared,
Office Ultimate 2007, each user gets a separate copy and Access displays a message in the alert bar to help users who want to check-out and modify the shared front-end save changes back to the server. The navigation pane shows that the tables are now linked, and by selecting Properties from the right-click menu on a table, users can see where they're linked to. Users can also use the context menu to take invoke SharePoint actions on the linked table like opening the browser view, changing the columns and settings for the list, or setting up workflow.
When the database is moved to the server, some functionality may be lost due to the differences between the SharePoint data store and Access. The Move to SharePoint feature creates a table in the database that lists any alerts and explains why they occur. The user can open this table from the Nav Pane.
The Access Application in SharePoint
Once the application is on SharePoint, the user can look at the lists either through the SharePoint thin views or through the Access rich views. The Access tables now appear in the list of lists on SharePoint. Opening one of those lists displays the data that was in Access.
Since the data is now in SharePoint, it can use SharePoint functionality, so for example deleted items are moved to the Recycle Bin, users can apply workflow rules to the items, and changes to the list are versioned by default.
The Access views appear in the list of views along with the browser views, so linking back to Access is as simple as selecting a view from the dropdown. Clicking on "Open Issues by Category" will automatically bring down the front-end from the server and open that report in Access. Next Time
In the next post, I'll talk about taking SharePoint apps offline,
Office 2010 Home And Business Key, and about making the browser version of the applications richer by using the new SharePoint Designer tool. <div
Windows 7 Pro Publish to SharePoint
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