Sharepoint!
5 days to persuade the admins to provide me the (free – from those nice MS folks) template.
10 mins to create a training site
1 hour to timetable 40+ training sessions (and that only took so long because of the way I have set it up in Excel).
And I can do updates in the browser or Access, and see them straight away in Outlook and back in the browser.
And everyone can book themselves on whatever they want without burying me in a deluge of email.
I’m well impressed, and I think I have only scratched the surface. Dick M has mentioned the Access connection before for managing Sharepoint lists, having used it for real I see why he was impressed.
I messed up the import from Excel the first time, but fixed it with an update query on the linked table, neat. I don’t like browser interfaces for proper work, so being totally connected to a client as rich as Access is just right for me.
I havent worked out how to get the registered delegate list yet, but hey I only created the site yesterday.
The (free) Sharepoint Application templates are here btw
cheers
Simon
Smurf on Spreadsheets 
Wednesday, 6th May, 2009 at 11:58 am |
I created this post – http://workerthread.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/using-access-2007-to-update-sharepoint-lists/ following a question on the SharePoint User Group web site. Would also recommend the Zac Wppdall book on Access 2007 templates and how they work with SharePoint.
Derek
Wednesday, 6th May, 2009 at 11:59 am |
Sorry slippery fingers, should read Zac Woodall’s book…
Wednesday, 6th May, 2009 at 1:35 pm |
Yes Simon – and I think the story in Access 2010 will be even better.
The only concern I have is that there seems to be a strong favouritism in the SharePoint Community (whatever that is?) toward InfoPath. That is largely because of IP’s integration in Visual Studio. It may be difficult to get any traction using Access with SharePoint in corporations. Sometimes I get discouraged that MS just wants traditional Office to fail frankly. Don’t understand it.
Dick
Wednesday, 6th May, 2009 at 2:50 pm |
I agree, I think Access 2010 will be even more SharePoint-oriented.
Re InfoPath, don’t forget it’s still a forms application, and uses whatever data source you give it to submit to (or even no data source). For a lot of SharePoint Enterprise users it has a lot of interest because it can be deployed for use through a browser with no local InfoPath licence. In this environment though I think simple is better, so I would only use InfoPath with Visual Studio if I really needed to.
Derek
Wednesday, 6th May, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Infopath is just a Forms app. I think it won’t take long for requests to outpace the capabilities of Infopath. Then the decision would be top go to VS or to Access. I personally think that Access 2010 will allow for more cost-effective solutions than a VS/IP solution. This has been the argument around Access forever and it will now move into the SP space.
I hope MS gives Access with SP a chance in its message on Office 2010. I think it will satisfy a lot more people than Infopath for those departmental apps that are time and cost sensitive.
Dick