Great Database Software from Microsoft
May 01, 2019
Great Database Software from Microsoft
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is used for multiple databases throughout the organization. One main use is the bill of materials for projects. We use it to manage revisions of the bill of materials. Each revision has a table within the bill of material and we are able to run a comparison between revisions and produce a cover sheet which shows the differences. This is very useful in tracking changes and maintaining up to date documents. This also helps with processing document changes and it makes revising the bill of materials quick and easy. Also, Microsoft Access is used for our parts catalog in AutoCAD Electrical. There are multiple tables within the database and this is where we put part numbers and descriptions for these parts. This is used when a bill of materials report is run on a circuit diagram.
- One good aspect of Microsoft Access is how the software can be customized for different applications. This is very useful because we are able to use this software for multiple applications, which makes it cost-friendly.
- Another strong point of Microsoft Access is the skill required to customize, the amount of programming required is less than most other database programs. This is good for a beginner looking to get into database management.
- Microsoft Access is one of the more cost-friendly database applications, and most of the time it comes with Microsoft Office. Other database programs can be expensive and not as easy to use.
- One downfall of Access is some of the bugs I have encountered using this software. Sometimes our database becomes corrupt and we have to restore from a backup. This can be time-consuming and the worst part is sometimes work is lost if the database is not backed up for a couple of days.
- Another issue I have encountered with Access is sometimes the database will think someone has it opened and it then becomes read-only. This causes issues if someone has to make a modification and it thinks someone else is working on it. It will tell you the last person who had it opened, but sometimes it is not correct.
- Access also has some issues with performance on larger databases, it can take a little bit to open databases with a lot of data. It sometimes also freezes while loading some items.
- It has made keeping an up to date parts database quick and easy, which makes processing projects easy and accurate.
- We have lost some time with corrupt databases, this can be a big issue if we lost multiple days of work.
- Access overall makes maintaining and modifying databases quick and easy. Overall it has helped the company save time and money.
Microsoft Access is much easier to understand and use than SAP. There are a lot of menus in SAP which can be very difficult to navigate. If you are familiar with Microsoft Word/Excel it is very similar and should be easy to learn. Also maintaining databases in Access is much easier than SAP since the user interface is much more user-friendly.