Access is good if you use it for its strengths
March 20, 2018
Access is good if you use it for its strengths
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Access
We currently use Microsoft Access to do analytics on SAS datasets or smaller datasets that we would prefer to not use pivot tables or its too much volume. Usually volume is what drives us to use Access, for the volume that we need Access works just fine. A feature that we have realized is very useful within Access is sharing data across teams. The ability to export a dataset and have another team import that dataset with such ease is very useful.
- Sharing datasets across teams or individuals. When we have a scenario where storing a dataset in an actual centralized database is not practical its great to be able to quickly just put a dataset out on a shared drive that anyone on the team can pull in.
- Access is a great stepping stone for someone that is just getting involved in datasets and does not have the resources to create centralized databases
- The ability to import pretty much any file into an access dataset
- The user interface is a little bit cumbersome
- Volume within an access dataset can be a problem if you get too large and exporting the data can take a lot of time
- This tool is for quick fast creation and manipulation of data this is not for larger datasets.
- Quick analysis of mission critical data that has a time constraint and we do not have the resources or time to put the data into a Oracle database
- Analysis of datasets with a UI that allows for a nontechnical individual to query data.
- As I said before the volume of data can I times be a big roadblock, we usually know the limitations of the product but at times it can be frustrating when deadlines are close
The only advantage that Access has on the other products I have listed is the ability to export datasets and easily share them. Doing that in Toad is a little more complicated from what we have experienced. Other than that I cannot say that Access is better than any of the other products listed. I would say they are far better products overall.