• todd.ayers (5/7/2013)


    Looking for good and/or bad reasons to use SQL server as a back end component to access 2007 and use the Forms and Reports of Access as the GUI for the user environment. Any Takers?

    It somewhat depends on how many users (copies) of your Access database you will need. If you have a lot of users this can become a real pain when you need to update and such. I would recommend using SSRS for reports if that is possible because otherwise you are locked into Access as your front end unless you rewrite the reports so that another application can consume them. That leaves only the actual front end in Access and I find that the front end is clunky and kind of cumbersome to deal with.

    Personally I abhor Access. That is mostly because we have people that will create their own Access project and then get to a point where they are beyond their skill set and ask me to come behind them and fix it. All too often this ends up being a complete rewrite because it was built with no knowledge of data structures and normalization.

    By no means am I saying that it is a bad idea to use Access like you are thinking. I don't know all the details about the project, your company and your abilities. All I am saying is that for me I would not use Access as a front end.

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