Microsoft Access

I have employed MS Access in several different organizations, both large corporate entities and at mid-size firms, and even at a number of non-profit agencies. It is typically used by individuals or departmentally, although I have had opportunity in several small to mid-size firms to employ it on a larger scale within the organization. Typically I have found a number of users comfortable with Excel end up developing massive database-like sets of information across spreadsheets that are shared or sent across the org, and Access has presented solutions to migrate these into a more solid data model with a user-friendly interface. I have also seen Access poorly implemented in larger organizations, where it is simply a glorified spreadsheet. The capacity of the tool is enormous, and although the training curve is not steep, it is necessary for some basic user and developer training to be able to employ it effectively.

My organization currently uses Microsoft Access primarily as a fast and easy way to compile data and have a manageable database for different projects and ideas. Since we all already use Microsoft Office Suite and are familiar with the various products within that, especially Excel, we all have adapted very quickly to the software as well as our own standards for consistency. This way, we are able to customize different dashboards and reports and use data with which we are already familiar.

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.

Microsoft Access is used in our department for the reporting that we provide. Access is a great way for us to create a small database for our information. We then have created macros that make updating our reports and numbers very easy. Without Access this process would take much longer.

Microsoft Access is used as a tool to fulfill the role of a back-end relational database when one is needed. Access is available enterprise-wide as it is available in the Microsoft Office bundle, but it is used more heavily by the data and analytics departments. We use it for things such as accounting systems, customer transaction tracking, and high volume data processing. Access serves as a more powerful database than Microsoft Excel or traditional client-server based databases and has capabilities for migration that make it useful.