Hello.At my work we're discouraged from using MS Access. We've been told that Sharepoint will be a replacement for Access. Is this true?We have an Access database that we currently use and it's very useful. But in the near future we may have to stop using when we're eventuallytold that Sharepoint shall once and for alltake precedence over all use of Access.So can a person create a database in Sharepoint? Or is it that Sharepoint can just be used to link to an Access database?In other words it doesn't sound to me like Sharepoint is used to create databases, just link to them. Is this right?

What are you doing in Access? Tables? Views? Forms? Reports? Access can be used for many different purposes, as can SharePoint.SharePoint has this concept of a List object which is similar to a database table. You can define the columns and even link two lists together like you would two tables. As you define the lists it creates forms for you automagically. Of course if you don't like those forms you can create a custom interface just like a custom app sitting on Access. The SharePoint lists also support the concept of views which allow you to determine which fields to show, in which order, with sorting, filtering, and grouping options specific to that view.So can you use SharePoint to replace functions you used to do in Access? Absolutely.Like any other technology migration though, I would encourage you to figure out what SharePoint is and what it is really good at instead of just attacking the problem from the mindset of the previous technology. SharePoint Developer | Administrator | Evangelist -- Twitter - https://twitter.com/next_connect

Hello.Our database is more than just lists. It has forms, tables, queries, and it keeps track of students and classes and their attendence in them. New students are addeded & tracked. New teachers are added. New classes are as well.We use Access to manage list of students and to track their attendence. The Access database was created by a consultant. Would we have to hire another consultant to write some sort of a database in Sharepoint? What is the database back end? Isn't it Access?

Sharepoint can do many more Functionalities than just what you've mentioned. For instance if you want to conduct any assesments for your students you can do it on a website or you want provide a survey for anything you can do it pretty easily. Using sharepoint you can host websites. Sharepoint uses SQL as the backend DB. you will be customizing sharepoint not the backend SQL DB's. HK

I guess the bottom line is that we'd have to hire someone knowledgable in Sharepoint database development to redo our database in whatever the Sharepoint format is. We cannot export or convert an Access database and have it work directly in Sharepoint, right?

Regarding the database, SharePoint runs on MS SQL Server, so it is a real database with all of the services that come with a full featured DBMS. It does however support connections from Access giving some ad-hoc capabilities. I definitely wouldn't open that up in an environment with "production applications" or any real load just as I wouldn't allow people to connect from Access or Excel to any other transactional system.I think its a tough call. On the one hand SharePoint is meant to be a tool that end-users can work with and accomplish great things and I have seen great things done by non-technical people. Replacing an existing application though is something you would want to hand to an experience SharePoint Solution Consultant. You can setup lists for the students, the teachers, and then lists with records that pull both of those in via links similar to a regular database table.So can it be done? Absolutely. Can it be done in house, without a SharePoint expert? Yes, but there may be some lessons learned as you go and the solution may not be as sophisticated as what you currently use. SharePoint Developer | Administrator | Evangelist -- Twitter - https://twitter.com/next_connect

>At my work we're discouraged from using MS Access.Ignoring SharePoint for a moment, why don't you just convert your Access database to SQL Server. As far as I know that is possible and you would be following the "rules" about not using Access without needing to make the investment to learn something completely new (as you would still be using a database system directly).WSS FAQ sites: WSS 2.0: http://wssv2faq.mindsharp.com WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007: http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com Total list of WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 Books (including foreign language titles) http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/V%20Books.aspx

We have a similar problem in my department at our school (secondary - I teach ICT) and I don't feel that this thread has satisfactorily addressed PortlandJ's - and my - problem. We use an Access Database to track students studying towards an external qualification. We have developed this over the past 10 years to fulfil the necessary criteria for the external exam body (the BCS). Candidates are listed in the DB with the data required by the BCS. We also use it to record the teaching groups they are in with the respective teacher, make bookings, produce register lists and front sheets for their external online tests, upload results, track achievement and produce outcome reports for management, amongst other things. It has a series of tables and a large number of queries, including Append, Update, Crosstab, Delete and basic queries to perform the functions and produce the outputs we require. The problem is that our IT manager states that his department can no longer support it as our systems are updated - from PC-based servers, currently to SharePoint Services 3.0 (with updates on a rolling schedule). Meanwhile, Access is still the database option provided by Microsoft and used regularly in the big wide world, but it is increasingly difficult to teach our students how to use it as we cannot host demonstration Access databases on SharePoint/the school Intranet. If we are to use the correct tool for the job, what alternative to Access do Microsoft suggest for the storage and retrieval of data - or are we all expected to move to the unintuitive SQL - which was surely the reason for the more accessible version in the form of Access in the first place?