Access JumpStart 2.0 | Blog
A Rapid Development Framework for Microsoft Access
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Don’t let a “perfect storm” get you down!
Following up my message yesterday, I had big plans to get some more client work done, but as it happened, I wasn't able to accomplish what I initially set out to do. Why? A "perfect storm" in meteorology is when multiple weather patterns converge to create a...
When life gets overwhelming… choose to stop.
Right now I've got a lot going on. You may have noticed I have stopped writing daily posts. It's been going on my todo list every day, but I just am feeling too drained by the end of the day and my brain just isn't coming up with things to write very easily. So, what...
User Defined Types in Access VBA
I was working on a function in a customer database that returned a customer name. The function looked in a CSV file that was being selected to look through it and find the name in the CSV data. There was a new requirement to look up more information from the file. I...
Allowing AI to see your whole database
Yesterday, I had found a method for CoPilot to see an entire database. In order to do this, all the objects of the database need to be exported to text files. This is an undocumented and unsupported feature of Access, but it has been there for a long time and is what...
Playing with CoPilot for analyzing an Access database
Just now I was thinking it sure would be nice if CoPilot could analyze my Access database and give me tips on things. So I tried an experiment. I asked CoPilot if it could create databases or if I could upload my database for it to analyze. It thought it would be able...
Mastering CROSS JOIN in SQL Server: From Cartesian Products to Reusing Calculated Columns
I had never heard of a cross join, but was exploring ways to put some complex calculations into other calculations in a nested fashion on SQL server. SQL does not allow you to reference a calculated column to calculate another column, but this method allows you to add...
Simplifying Complex SQL Logic with CTEs in SQL Server
This was the technique I ended up using in my query which inspired this article. Again, I had help from Copilot to author the following article about using the CTE (Common Table Expression) syntax: When writing SQL queries, especially those involving multiple layers...
Comparing 2 data sets visually
I was asked by a customer to mark fields in red that changed each week in a report. So what strategy did I come up with? Well first I need to store the data from the original run of the report. The customer wants to know what changed since the last automated report...
Stay on target…
If you're a Star Wars fan you might remember one of the Y-wing pilots flying through the Death Star trench, flying towards the tiny little vent he needs to shoot his torpedo into in order to take advantage of a tiny flaw that would mean the destruction of the massive...
Access file backends with multiple users – locking
As an overview, a big issue with multiple users is editing the same data and tables. The issue needs to be addressed differently depending on what backend you are accessing the data from. Today we'll start the discussion with Access file backends. Access files handle...
Microsoft Access with multiple users
This is an entire planet to explore in and of itself. There are multiple layers of sharing when it comes to creating Access databases and applications with multiple users. Although fraught with land mines, users can use the same Access front end at the same time. This...
Working in an Agile way…
Providing feedback and getting feedback is SOOO important. My customers give me an idea of what they want. It's often in the form of some behavior they want from a form or data modeling on a report. It's usually pretty minimal in content with an assumption I already...
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