When it comes to choosing a simple, yet robust relational DBMS to create, manage and administer the databases, most users don’t look beyond Microsoft Access. The latest version – Access 2013 – has also been revitalized and improved with new features and tools just like other Microsoft Office 2013 suite applications. Apart from sporting the fairly new, visually appealing Modern UI (formerly called Metro UI) inspired design, it comes packed with a slew of database management and administration tools that not only abet database experts, but also facilitate novice users in developing complex databases without the fuss of having to manage each database element separately.

For those who haven’t tried it yet, Access 2013 has been designed keeping web development in mind; it employs a new web application model that is specifically built to facilitate web application development. This new application model takes the SharePoint as front-end handler and SQL Server keeps your data saved and organized at the back end. The former offers data security, authorization and authentication for Access 2013, while the latter stores the macros, views, queries and tables, and yes, you guessed it right! It now offers a brand new database type called Access web app, which complies with the new application model that includes SharePoint and SQL Server.

The web development has certainly been made easier with MS Access latest iteration, but what about the database management-specific features? Well, you have all the legacy database controls at your disposal, plus it also simplifies the use of both old and new tools with web app format, which actually eliminates the need of having conventional knowledge for web development. In what follows, we will briefly discuss Access 2013 web app and its numerous database-specific features.

Host & Publish Apps To Office 365 Cloud

Cloud computing has certainly changed the way users access, manage and store their data. Microsoft bring this rather new concept to Access for publishing and managing Access web apps. As you may already know that the Access apps put an emphasis on getting things done, rather than creating, managing and publishing the apps manually, using the Office 365 plan, you can now use the cloud space for hosting the Access apps. Additionally, Microsoft ensure that your apps remain secured, backed-up and available all the time.

Web Apps Templates

With the addition of new web app format, Access 2013 helps you quickly get started. For a basic SharePoint web app, you need nothing except the right template for your web app; just pick your favorite, and it will set up everything for you including the design elements, theme and color scheme. Of course, you can change these elements anytime you like and customize it to make the app look more aligned with the business idea. The backstage view for New menu offers a great deal of templates to choose from. Before you begin, make sure that SharePoint and SQL Server are configured properly.

Views (previously known as “Forms” for desktop database formats)

The way users interact with Access apps has also been reworked from scratch. The new Views controls, which work exactly like Forms, offer an easy way for your target audience to interact with the Access web apps. So how do they work? They provide an extensive list of user interface controls to let Access web app developers build new apps without much hassle involved. Using these form control, you can easily create customized Views for your users, making the apps not only easy to navigate, but also highly flexible to functional changes.

With every new table you create for your web app, it displays two Views that you can redesign as well as customize to bring in more desired form controls. For better organization of Views, Access 2013 introduces Tiles pane that allows you to manage the Views as per requirements. It lets you hide the Views and change the name of the tables in Tile pane and sort them into a specific order. However, it must be noted that changing the display name of the table on the pane, doesn’t actually rename its underlying table.

Since Views add all the essential form controls to your Access web apps, understanding different types of Views that it support is arguably important. You can create 4 different types of Views namely List Details, Datasheet, Blank and Summary. The first two types are relatively important, and therefore users prefer them over other types. One of distinguishing features of List Details is List Pane, which appears at the left side of the view, and enables you to easily navigate and filter the records in the view. This pane can show three different items from each record/row. Users just need to change its properties to choose Primary, Secondary or Thumbnail view.

The Search pane is also kept handy at the top, providing you with the option to easily filter the values in the view. The other significant view is Datasheet view that offers the Excel spreadsheet-like data entry experience. Not only does it make date entry easier, it also lets you sort the data in the view with a single click.

Summary view helps you easily find and show specific information about the record as well as group multiple records. It allows you to create a summary of record by specific field/column. For instance, if you need to view the complete information of students who attended the class on a specific date. You can select Status or Present/Absent column to quickly filter the students who attended the class. It actually shows you all the options separately, letting you easily pick the specific column value which is required to filter the records.

AutoComplete & Related Items Controls

Remember the old combo box control that required users to include all the sample values so as to choose the one that could be used to fill a specific field data? Now, with the brand new AutoComplete control, you no longer need to compile the list of possible values that user might need. The AutoComplete control, as the name suggests, lets users automatically choose the values from the specific data set, eliminating the need of specifying all possible data values for users to pick the right one. It shows the possible values as soon as user starts typing along with an option to add a new item if specified by DBA.

The related items control helps you display a record or a set of record from the table. You can configure the control to set desired number of tabs, which are shown in the View. Furthermore, you can also edit the items in Related items tab by assigning the view to its popup view property.

Conclusion

The new Access Web Application model brings the much needed web-based database application features, which take the database management to a whole new level. The improved SharePoint and SQLServer support has certainly made the entire process of creating and managing web database solutions a lot easier.

As mentioned before, even the novice database users can now easily set up web database applications and connect them with their online websites/apps. But, as far as desktop database types are concerned, we don’t see any significant improvements, as it doesn’t offer any desktop database structure specific updates. So, if you’re an avid desktop database user, all you get is the same old Access wrapped in Microsoft new Modern UI.

Does MS Access 2013 contain the features you have been craving for a long time? Will you give it a whirl? Let us know in the comments.