Microsoft Access
Top Rated
Microsoft Access
Top Rated
Microsoft Access
Starting at $139.99 per PC
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What is Microsoft Access?
Microsoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.
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$139.99
On Premise
per PC
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting / Integration Services
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Microsoft Access - What is Access?
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What is Microsoft Access?
Microsoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.
Microsoft Access Video
What is Microsoft Access?
Microsoft Access Competitors
Microsoft Access Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows |
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Microsoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.
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Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of Microsoft Access are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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January 27, 2023
Nice when is included
We needed a lightweight solution that could be easily integrated with our SQL server and could be installed on the user's computers
- Easy to Use
- Lightweight
- Included with our office 365 licenses
- Speed
- Table size
- Full text search
May 25, 2022
A great Database management solution which covers all aspects of data storage and management.
We used Microsoft Access as our main tool for our database management. It helps us to attend to the day-to-day tasks that a company needs to perform in order to function. Being a software company ourselves, We not only use it to store our company data but also some client information as well and do not have any negative outlook towards it yet.
- Dattabase Management
- Reporting
- Analysis
- Data Search
- Intuitive analytics
- Reporting structure
December 21, 2021
A superb database management system
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Access is one the best software in the database management system. In an organisation when one wants to make a report, Microsoft Access helps to do it perfectly. It is a software where graphic interface, Excel sheets are perfectly maintained. I am fully satisfied with the software. The software is very easy to use.
- Database system can be easily done.
- Graphical interface makes it awesome.
- Collaboration of documents.
- For huge amount of documents it is beaconing slower.
- Security level is low.
- It is available for windows user.
August 20, 2021
[Microsoft] Access - not for the faint of heart - but certainly for the amateur data miner
As a corporate trainer, it was my job to learn how a company would implement Microsoft Access and then train its employees how to build, use, and access the data relevant to their job. It was used for specific departments to collate information, collaborate with other employees and serve as the next step when excel could not provide a reporting function.
- Reporting
- Data gathering
- Data manipulation
- Easy to implement and train
- Formula creation
- Form creation
- Complex reporting
July 19, 2021
Microsoft Access a great MS SQL alternative
[Microsoft] Access has all of the functionalities needed to build concise applications for small offices or needs. The ability to utilize other database platforms like SQL Server is a plus. The ability to create full functioning applications in less than an hour is a big plus. There isn't much you can't do with [Microsoft] Access if you understand that it isn't meant to be an enterprise tool.
- Works on pretty much same SQL scripts
- Forms and reports are easy to customize and edit.
- High learning curve
- Limited support
- No new enhancements
June 28, 2021
Best in Business, Microsoft Access!
Having worked as a Data Analyst at a reputed retail company, Microsoft Access was one of the major tools that were used for database design, creating entity-relationship diagrams, creating mock layouts of the data schema, and writing queries to retrieve data. At the moment, Microsoft Access was being widely used across the organization. The main reason for using Microsoft Access was its usability and its usual Microsoft user interface that made it easier for nontechnical folks to write queries as well.
- 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!
- Need to backup very frequently, I have lost my work many times.
- No version for Mac users, [I believe this is a] big limitation.
- The ability to handle large database and multiple users.
- UI is easy to use but [I feel it] can be improved a lot.
I work in the global programs department at a state university. I am not an expert, I don't know coding, but I do have extensive experience with Microsoft Access. Microsoft Access is being used in our department for databases to keep data about attendance at events, services performed, club dues and fees, the department bank account, and department orders. (I don't know if anyone else at the university uses it; most use MS Excel). I not only use Microsoft Access in my current position, I also used it extensively in my previous position (medical researcher) and built for the department an orders database, cell storage and retrieval database and a database for shipments of standardized adult bone marrow stem cells in liquid nitrogen to researchers all over the world. I am the only one in our current department who knows how to use Microsoft Access and thus I'm the only one who uses it, but I use it for the benefit of the department by quickly pulling up information that has to be tracked for reports needed for grants that we work under and other types of information. I designed and created all the elements used in the databases, tables, forms, reports, and macros. I've input all the data from the different events, clubs, services, and departmental accounts. I recently created the orders database so that the person in our department who does the orders can quickly enter all the order information that is input into our university order system into the database and then quickly find specific info about those orders. I find Microsoft Access helps our department function more efficiently.
- Generates information about department events, services, orders, etc. quickly and in report form.
- Easy to design forms and reports with drag and drop components. You don't need to know coding.
- The ability to link tables and queries to get all the info needed for forms and reports
- Forms and reports are easy to customize and edit.
- Easily report your data grouped and sorted by any field
- 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.
May 19, 2021
Very powerful, but not easy to configure
We use [Microsoft] Access to manage our projects and sales contacts for our small book publishing company. It is the only source of data for the company, which only has a few employees. It tracks sales pipeline, payments, projects, royalties, and everything else. Reports, queries and forms are at the center of everything that happens in the company.
- Fully customizable
- Forms enable customized easy entry
- Reports can solve pretty much any need
- Mailmerge and emails can automate any task.
- Very high learning curve
- Hard to code complex reports without a ton of time and skill
- No support resources for reporting help.
May 15, 2021
Simple and Easy database management solution
We are using Microsoft Access for abstracting data [from] multiple data resources and creating different sorts of management presentations in forms of graphical and rationale outputs. There are various applications and databases linked with Microsoft Access tool in our organization including Excel, MS SharePoint and cloud storages. It has made [...] things easier in many ways as the data is being managed and reports are being generated in [an] automated way for large data as compared to looking up and abstracting for every input manually through VLOOKUPs and using numerous formulas. We are using MS Access in all of our departments across the company and users have access to the centralized domain as per their job roles through SSO.
- Thorough management of data and files.
- Data queries are conducted in snap of a time.
- Easy and simple database solution with multiple outputs.
- User friendly customization options.
- Cannot be use on various non Microsoft platforms.
May 13, 2021
Access makes my job easier!
I personally prefer to use Microsoft Access over Excel for specific data analysis tasks. I find it easier and more effective to use to cross reference and/or combine differs sets of data. For example, I often have to analyze benefit enrollment data by different demographic characteristics.
- Find matching data points from 2 different data sets
- Find unmatched data points from 2 data sets
- Amalgamate data ,any different data sets
- A little clunky
- Not very intuitive
- Have to take time to format data in order to import/work within Microsoft Access
We have been using Microsoft Access in creating simple and medium-sized projects for many years. It’s easy to use the DB management tool for creating business applications. MS Access [has been] used in our finance department for a long time. We use it along with Microsoft Visual Basic and its features when building new applications to build and develop better apps. The launch time of new applications has been greatly reduced and this has increased the efficiency of the work.
- Default ready templates that you can use depending on the theme of your project
- You do not need programming knowledge or DB science to work with it
- Simple and attractive graphical interface that you can add everything you have in mind to your application features with a few clicks
- Ability to easily connect and store data with Azure SQL and MySQL databases, will increasing security and work efficiency.
- Although we know that Microsoft Access was created for small and simple projects, if Microsoft expands its capabilities, it [would be] very good. For example, the size limit of the database is currently 2GB or 200K records is very small.
- Microsoft Access is not designed for multiple users at the same time and has limitations that must be considered.
- Designed for Windows OS only and this is a serious limitation, many users use Macs and Apple products.
May 13, 2021
Access is a great investment for your company
[Microsoft] Access is being used by various departments in the organization. I use it to combine databases with joins, such as combining data within 2 Excel files. It is very useful, because a lot of people at the company manually combine data, or use vlookup. Vlookup is good sometimes, but you only get the first occurrence of the match, whereas doing a join in Access lets you get all matches so you can decide what needs to be kept
- Easy to use, and nearly limitless potential
- Fast when joining data sets, whether you are doing inner, outer, full or self joins
- Widely used software. Just about every company uses Access, or at least has it installed
- When joining data, if there could be a way to add columns for matches, instead of adding rows
May 02, 2021
Microsoft Access makes office work sophisticated
We like Microsoft Access because it has a very similar interface to the rest of the office suite services, starting from the database creation screen, which has the same mechanics as other office services such as Microsoft Publisher or Microsoft Word. It is convenient to work with databases that are entirely blank, with no extra formatting.
- When creating a database we can regenerate templates that we have used before, either the example templates generated by the platform or the ones we have uploaded on our own, which are saved in a specific section within the database creation screen.
- The platform offers templates for almost any situation that requires a specific database, with cases such as pure asset and contact management, or to account for problems, incidents[,] and tasks that appear during work sessions.
- The filtering system makes it possible to add default values to each data added to our table, and we can review and edit them individually, without affecting the overall structure of the database, as is often the case with Microsoft Excel documents.
- Using Microsoft Access is as easy as using any other Microsoft office service, with similar interfaces that make it easy to get familiar with the platform and the data list management functions it has, and it is very convenient to be able to move them to other Microsoft office 365 services, or to our own centralized cloud.
- The support team that Microsoft provides in general for all the services in their suite maintains an adequate quality of communication, with a lot of patience and very precise explanations when talking about the best strategies to get the most out of the platform.
- In case you are creating a macro within the table tools tab and need to name it, it does not run automatically when calling the event code within the database in question.
- If we need to work with external databases, Microsoft Access does not let us create links to link tables and be able to create accesses to them in less time. This is just the opposite of ODBC databases, which can be reviewed instantly from the web.
- The platform offers few formats for exporting list information, and there are specific cases, such as those used in conjunction with Microsoft Word, where the selected document is not automatically enriched at the [next] level after export.
May 02, 2021
Microsoft Access Review
Microsoft Access is being used in selective departments as of now [...] but is [...] being used in almost all branches of our company. We have data coming in from multiple sources, and Microsoft Access makes it really easy to collate and format the data [...] so that it can be processed into usable forms.
- Easy integration
- User-friendly
- Very easy to use
- Sometimes files get corrupted
- Backups are often required
- Slows down the system
May 02, 2021
Microsoft Access Makes it Possible!
We use Microsoft Access to backlog data and information for our entire company. Microsoft Access helps keep information in a concise location for easy reference. This way, we don't have to spend hours going through filing cabinets or folders when looking for old information.
- Stores Data
- Groups Data for Easy Reference
- User-Friendly
- Marketing
- Customer Outreach
- IT
May 01, 2021
Microsoft Access is still relevant!
For a long time, we used Microsoft Access [for] many [in-house] applications from engineering requests to IT Assets[,] etc. Over time, we migrated many of [these applications] to MS SQL server or the cloud. However, we continue to use MS Access with ODCB Data as MS Access provide[s] a quick way to build fully functional applications with the least amount of effort.
- Quickly build forms and reports
- Easy user interface with familiar tools
- Least amount of programming
- Multi-user support
- Useful features are often removed from newer versions
April 30, 2021
Microsoft Access for Newbies
Microsoft Access is available to all employees through our Enterprise subscription to Office 365. Access is extremely powerful and a life saver when it comes to working with data, but it can be a bit intimidating at first to get to know.
I was able to self-teach myself the basics of the program and was able to find another power-user of the program at my university to help answer specific questions I had come up about linking to data sources on campus.
- Matching/combining data from two or more sources. (I.e. data from a central student information system and information received from a department-made submission form
- Finding errors between two datasets
- Saving time when used properly instead of Microsoft Excel
- Generally high learning curve for new users. Especially if they are not comfortable with technology.
- Desktop only program; not available in web-format like other O365 products
- Fewer experienced users, means it's a lot of self-teaching and troubleshooting when you run into an issue
April 22, 2021
A good tool for rapid development and prototyping, better for data management than Excel
We use Microsoft Access for low code, relational database applications where users are creating, reading, updating, and deleting data (CRUD). Access provides SQL implementation and relational database functionality in a somewhat easy-to-use environment which makes it superb to excel for data management activities. The benefits to access are that is locally stored and a standalone applications with a easy-to-user interface which makes it hard to compete against. Likewise, due to the underlying SQL and relational database architecture, it tends to handle larger sets of data much better than Microsoft Excel.
- Rapid-application Development
- Data Entry / Data Management
- Local Data Management
- Old SQL Engine (It would be great to use T-SQL Syntax!)
- Old Forms Builder (update WYSIWYG forms builder)
- No Cloud-based option
April 09, 2021
Microsoft Access is good for databases management
Microsoft Access is being used in our organization as organized data access tool from databases of different functions of organization to abstract graphical reports and information distribution. We usually get data and records from different resources and use MS Access to format and compile gathered data in presenting manner. We are using Microsoft Access in IT and Engineering departments of the organization and have benefitted by this easy to use and comprehensive data access tool.
- [Microsoft] Access can be linked directly with other Microsoft applications to get all sort of data formats.
- Easy configuration and interface
- Can easily import and compile data from different resources.
- Not ideally perfect for large databases.
April 08, 2021
MS Access: It Has a Place in the Mix
Access is generally not used for core ICT solutions. It is used for 1) local solutions, 2) reporting solutions, 3) prototypes/temporary solutions pending a corporate solution.
- All-in-one solutions (dashboard, data entry, reports/queries, relational data).
- As much/little business logic and automation as required.
- Can easily be tailored to specific needs of departments/individuals.
- Can interact directly with corporate databases (e.g. SQL).
- The need for each user to have their own instance of the front end is an obstacle to more widespread use.
- Graphs/charts still seem more difficult to implement than they should be.
Many different use cases can be applied to Microsoft Access. More recently we have been using this to perform automatic joins when the input files will not change. This will eliminate the need for end users to utilize vlookups as they would normally. Since these types of joins can happen at any level of the organization, we are using access for the more localized locations where network connectivity isn't available and they can rely on a local database structure.
- Combining files
- Search large datasets quickly
- Roll out to single or multiple locations with limited ease and implementation cost
- Scalability between different versions
- 2GB Size limit before SQL migration needed
- Lack of availability to access via the web without SharePoint
- Corruption of files can happen, leading to VB being erased. Frequent backups are needed
March 15, 2021
Teaching with Access
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Microsoft Access in some of our projects, and for educational purposes mainly. The graphical interface seems to help students understand RDBMS concepts a bit easier, and also allows quick database design. This is a nice tool for smaller projects and bigger products as well - being able to download it from the cloud and part of Office 365 makes it an excellent candidate for "first database".
- Graphical interface makes design easier.
- Good introduction for database design concepts.
- GUI allows less room for errors.
- Concurrent users accessing a database makes it really slow.
- Requires Windows, and Office.
January 21, 2021
Microsoft Access Views
We use it to quickly work with data and pull out required information for our customers. it is being used across the whole organization as well as with particular customers.
- Easy to work with.
- Easy to learn.
- Easy to convert to SQL if the need arises.
- Would be nice to be able to work with larger databases.
- Certain features have changed over the years - sometimes hard to follow.
January 09, 2020
Access is wonderfully affordable and customizable, just be prepared to do some training.
It is used departmentally for our sales and marketing team to track our client and project history in lieu of previously using Salesforce. The business need that it addresses is creating an accurate and inexpensive database for that team to track our historical projects and clients, and track current pursuits and sales.
- It is inexpensive compared to other database options.
- It is versatile. You can create databases in almost any category, area, market sector, and industry.
- It lets you customize it, and you are able to create custom input forms and reports.
- Well, it requires a lot more training or research than other more "intuitive" Microsoft products.
- The buildout of custom reports is highly complex, and I think that area, in particular, could be more intuitive.
- Queries can be difficult to develop if you don't know the right language or terminology, and I think that those terms could be better visible in the ribbon.
January 03, 2020
Microsoft Access Positive Aspects
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Access is being used only by a department of the company, which is responsible for working with the information databases. It has not presented problems.
The grouping of data in an organized way adapts to the company designed a set of real strategies aimed at improving the profitability of the company. To date, the results have been positive because since they agreed it was implemented, the company's profit has improved. Microsoft Access adapts well in departments where databases do not have much content, or where we do not have to have completed programs or require working with many variables. It is a program that has all the work tools required by the organization to function properly and fulfill the planned tasks.
The grouping of data in an organized way adapts to the company designed a set of real strategies aimed at improving the profitability of the company. To date, the results have been positive because since they agreed it was implemented, the company's profit has improved. Microsoft Access adapts well in departments where databases do not have much content, or where we do not have to have completed programs or require working with many variables. It is a program that has all the work tools required by the organization to function properly and fulfill the planned tasks.
- Ability to manage all information
- Tables to store data
- Consult to search and retrieve only the data you need
- Forms to view, add and update or analyze the internet data
- Volume of data or users
- Among its biggest drawbacks are that it is not multiplatform