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Microsoft Office Access Makes a Difference

Purpose

It appears that Access is sometimes not well understood in some quarters.

On the other hand, if there is a requirement for an economical, feature-rich desktop database application, it is difficult to find a better tool for the job than Access.

Newcomers to Access have as examples:

- templates as supplied by Microsoft (which are applications that lend themselves to being “templatised”)

- sample applications in books (which are chosen by the author on the basis of illustrating principles)

- sample applications in courses (which are chosen on the basis of illustrating principles)

And then, there are the applications that are built in real businesses and organisations to provide real results, and these applications may or may not be similar to the templates or the book/course examples.

So, for the purpose of illustrating “where does Access fit in”, I thought it would be helpful to gather up a number of examples of real-world scenarios of Access applications. Nothing grandiose, no illustrations, screen-shots, etc, nor technical details. Just a synopsis, something about which we could say "Access is the best tool for this job".  I know there are potentially millions of examples of this, of course.  But some Access MVPs have provided examples from their own work, to illustrate the range of ways in which Access has found a niche.

Examples

The list of examples I have collected will be added to in time, so check back later. And each one, some of them brief, constitutes a separate article on my blog at http://blog.datamanagementsolutions.biz/dms.html. Below is a list of links to these articles.

Timber joinery – a multi-functional application. Graham Mandeno

Fishing lodge – a movable application. Albert Kallal

Roof parts – a manufacturing application. Allen Browne

Apparel/Footwear – a multi-national application. Peter Doering

Tree breeding – a botanical application. Joan Wild

Welding shop – a heavy duty application. Tony Toews

Restaurants – a well connected application. Jeff Conrad

Medical research – a soporific application. Karl Donaubauer

Recipe ingredients – a nutritional application. Duane Hookom

Airplane maintenance – a low-level application. Tom Wickerath

Shipping – a nautical application. Alex Dybenko

Point of Sale – a mercantile application. Ken Snell

Hair care – a production application. Pat Hartman

Auction house – a bidden application. Steve Schapel

Home building – a construction application. Arvin Meyer

Animal shelters – a benificence application. John Vinson

Selection – miscellaneous applications. John Viescas

Contact management – a tracking application. John Nurick

Senior games – a sporty application. Jeff Boyce

Literature fulfillment – a distribution application. Armen Stein

Converting Spreadsheets – back-linked applications. Garry Robinson

Health status – a finger on the pulse application. Oliver Stohr

Affinity – a mass mailing application. George Hepworth

Document Management – a collaboration application. Rick Brandt

Print Shop – an application to impress. Mark Davis

Commercial Weaving – a warped application. Al Campagna

Mutual Funds – a profitable application. Thomas Möller

Homeland Security – a compliant application. John Mishefske

Art Collection – a corporate application. Scott Diamond

Stamp Duty Tax – a submissive application. Leigh Purvis

Process Tracking – a robotic application. Brent Spaulding

Taxi Reservations – a dispatched application. Paul Baldarelli

WIA Reporting – a social policy application. Dave Hargis

Product Distribution – a MIS application. Glenn Lloyd

Investment Banking – a bigtime application. Graham Seach

Equipment Service – a cervical application. Sascha Trowitzsch

Rodeos – a ridden application. Jack Cowley

… more coming soon!!!

Steve Schapel