Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft SharePoint vs. Quickbase

As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.

Incentivized

SharePoint Document Management excels as a central repository for storing, organising, and retrieving documents. It supports version control, metadata tagging, secure access, and integration with tools like Power Automate. At our organisation, it's used for managing contracts, policies, and supplier documents. SharePoint Workflow Automation integrates with Power Automate to streamline approvals, gather feedback, and automate recurring tasks. This reduces reliance on email chains and manual trackers.

Incentivized

I no longer think that Quickbase is the way of the future. They do not fix major bugs in a timely manner, and are releasing basic functionality behind a paywall. I believe that Enterprise Level Tier should be given certain things, like SLAs on Support and up-time. However, as a low-code no-code platform the majority of the accounts, "builders", and users are not going to be able to justify the cost of an Enterprise Tier Plan, and won't be able to use the features that Quickbase continues to advertise.

Incentivized

• Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
• Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
• It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
• Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!

Incentivized

• We track employees' performance sheets, which are accessible to the employee, his manager, and HR, and this helps with transparency.
• We maintain technical process documents and SOPs, which help us quickly provide relevant documents during audits.
• We maintain incident documents change request forms in SharePoint, which helps us in tracking the changes.

Incentivized

• Rapidly bring new ideas to life
• Great authentication and authorization system out of the box
• Connects with many major third-party services (via Pipelines)
• Reporting and Dashboards are awesome
• Excellent emails notification system to keep us in the loop when data changes
• Intuitive UI for building forms and reports
• Nice playground to test new ideas

Incentivized

• Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
• The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
• Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
• I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.

Incentivized

• Windows Explorer users have some difficulty having to constantly UPLOAD / DOWNLOAD files. Specifically on the DOWNLOAD when they are used to Drag & Drop in & out of LOCAL folders via Window's explorer.
• Microsoft SharePoint supports multiple "library" types. When implementing our "image" library the search function is done via "tags" and boolean logic. This is challenging to most end users. I'd like our users to be able to search our Microsoft SharePoint image library without having to enter KEYWORD or other BOOLEAN logic.
• Microsoft SharePoint can also be an internal website for each department or company wide communication tool but I believe these features are geared for much larger organizations. Since we are a SMB we really aren't using these features. So maybe something more useful to SMBs would be nice.

Incentivized

• I'd like to see a link on email notices that take you directly into said notice. On an app that only has 1 or 2 email notices firing, there's no issue. However, we have some tools that are so complex that they have about 20 email notices firing at any given time based on the action users take. In this case, if we have to go in to modify a notice, we have to guess or scroll down the long list of notices to see which one we need to customize. It would be great if Quickbase had the URL of said notice somewhere at the footer of that notice so when Administrators click on it, it takes them into the exact notice they need to update.
• When filling out or reviewing a lengthy form, I'd like to see the Save & close button, as well as a Save & next option at the bottom of the form rather than having to scroll back up to the top of those forms just to click on those choices.

Incentivized

I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.

It's integral to our business. It's already included with most of the Office 365 licensing we buy, so the cost is effectively zero. It stores our files, it is the foundation for custom applications, and Microsoft only continues to enhance its functionality and its connections to other Microsoft tools. SharePoint just keeps getting better and better.

Incentivized

For our use-case of QuickBase, there really aren't any other products out there that can offer us the same out-of-the-box solutions they provide to us. We're also so integrated with it in our daily processes that to move away from it abruptly would cause mass chaos, so it's going to be renewed for at least the next several years.

Incentivized

Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.

Incentivized

No usability issues reported. Individual teams also have allocated areas which replace legacy shared drives on local LANs. Access to Sharepoint resources is fully integrated with corporate Active Directory with additional two-factor authentication required for administrative users. Users have access to Microsoft Services Hub which allows you to create, manage, and track support requests while staying current on Microsoft technologies with access to select self-paced learning paths

Incentivized

Quick Base has done everything we have asked it to do and then some. Our original goal was to have one system for CRM that encompassed both the sales process and the customer management. We have gone w-a-y beyond that with analytics, project management, system bug logging, and historical effort reporting.

Incentivized

I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.

Incentivized

Once we did get Quick Base configured and customized it was reliably available when we needed it. We may have had one or two occasions when the product was inaccessible but those were few. The greatest challenge with its availability was its difficulty with integrating with our systems.

Incentivized

Some of our tables that hold over a million records are starting to perform poorly, with some summaries taking over 20 seconds to load. This may be an indication that it is best to archive old data when reaching large volumes like this.

Incentivized

While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.

Incentivized

Support for SharePoint is quite good. Microsoft provides good support. Microsoft offers

• Quick turnaround time for issues
• A range of support services
• Access to a network of resources
• Escalation of issues
• Ongoing development and commitment to produce enhancement

The majority of support is required for initial installation. Once complete and the system is operating we have had very few support issues.

Incentivized

If you utilize the community, the support is amazing. Unfortunately, I find their actual support system a bit underwhelming. They don't seem to have a great process for interacting directly with an issue and often sweep significant issues under the rug by categorizing them as "Enhancement" ideas or legacy items.

The face to face training I received was on SharePoint Administration. It was rushed as there was a lot of information to cover and the application of the labs weren't that great either. I like to be able to relate what I am learning to what I am currently doing.

It is very easy to get training from their University portal and still if we don't know their, then we can ask their support too.

I like to learn at my own pace and online training allows for that. Additionally, you can skip through pieces of content that you already know or are already comfortable with. Microsoft actually offers great videos on their website for basic fundamental SharePoint Training. I have used these training videos in some of my own training sessions with end users.

Quick Base already is having a separate portal of providing training to customers and it is very easy to use and updates as per the new features added in to the application

there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access

Planning to the last detail would be advised. SharePoint is a very large application that takes a lot of finesse to get operational

I was not directly involved with the initial account implementation, only a bystander. For the app I directly implemented for my department only, I wish I had know to create an app diagram first. I don't remember if that was suggested. I think that would be a great help tip tool when a new app is created, to have a page with a check list of what is needed or how to get started. If you are a regular app builder, then you can bypass it or have the ability to turn it off in the app settings.

Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.

Incentivized

The reasons for selecting MS SharePoint are: SharePoint provides ease of use and web design assistance and support SharePoint helps you schedule your content for publishing. enables users to share documents with external parties and offers a better internal structure of the content and better indexing and searching capabilities.

Incentivized

Well, there's a plethora of low-code tools out on the marketplace and, you know, there's a reason that we've decided to partner with QuickBase because it has all the right balance of the ability to integrate with the ability for a citizen developer to create apps successfully. So if you look at something like Zo Ho's low-code offering, for example, yes, there are some similarities there, but they're really dependent on all of their other licensed products to get you where you want to be, where with QuickBase you have the ability to truly create something custom.

Incentivized

It has evolved really well with our company, but there is a hard limit to the table size that has begun to affect us and not let us grow. The table size limit is set at 500 MB and we have had to jump through quite a few hoops to be able to get by.

Incentivized

For clients we use Qucik base to develop application

Incentivized

• Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
• Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
• ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.

Incentivized

• It comes with Office 365. It won't cost you any additional charges.
• It will help you to streamline your communication and work as a central hub for all tasks, files[,] and events[.]
• Setting it up will need a bit [of] planning. If you jump blindly it will become a confusing place for your team members and make them frustrated[.]

Incentivized

• ROI is HUGE. Our company saved over 3.5 million in one year alone based on developments that year in Quickbase that saved time for many teams
• Less user error - implementing automations and standardized workflows has led to less user error as was previously seen by maintaining spreadsheets or Smartsheets