WHY MICROSOFT ACCESS?

Why did Clueword chose MS Access as the platform to develop CWORKS CMMS on? The following which was taken from an article at www.enflow.com explains it more concisely than we could.

"Because MS Access is not a database but is actually an enterprise level programming toolkit that uses the Visual Basic Language for its code base. And because MS Access it is designed to integrate with other enterprise level database systems as well as the Jet Database System (that is included with MS Access for free) as one possible backend solution.

and because...

• You can create a multi-user organization wide custom software solution

• Access easily upgrades to an enterprise level system (SQL Server 7/2000, etc)

• Access 2000/XP can directly connect & work with (SQL Server 7/2000, etc)

• Access supports OLE DB

• Access can be a user friendly front end to Oracle & other databases

 

• You can programmatically integrate MS Access with MS Office

• Excel, Word, Outlook, etc...

 

• You will lower your long term development & hiring expenses

• 1000's of qualified software developers can code MS Access

• Many hirable employee's are familiar with the MS Access Interface

 

• You can create complex Queries

• Make New Tables Queries, Append Imported Records

• Calculate Totals, User-Defined Functions

• Do Totals by Any Criteria

• Aggregate Functions

• Group bys, Aggregates, Expressions, etc

• Crosstab Queries, Parameter (multiple) Queries

• Find Duplicates, Find Unmatched Records, Top(n) Records, Unions

• Data Definition Queries, Subqueries

 

• You can share data between multiple platforms

• Access can import or export data (ASCII, CSV, txt, etc)

• Access can import or export XML data (XP version)

• Access can link to...

• External access tables, dBase(3,4,5)

• Excel Spreadsheets (updateable)

• HTML tables, Text tables

• FoxPro(ver 2.x & 3.0)

• Paradox(3.0, 4.x, 5.0)

• Sybase, Oracle, etc.

• You can create snapshots of Access 2000 reports that can be distributed to

• Disk, Printer, Web page, e-mail.

 

• You can create hyperlink interfaces to connect to any kind of file

• Web page, spreadsheet, image, document, etc.

 

• You can develop simple or complex graphing presentations

• Change data in the source table then graph automatically changes too

 

• You can design complex custom reports - save money on printing costs

• Mail merge letters & labels reports

• Create custom invoice printouts

• Sum fields, Subtotal sections, grouping totals, running sums

• Input fields that can grow or shrink

• Insert images or ole objects

• Sorting & grouping level reports to multiple depths

• Snaked column reports

 

• You can use Access as with a simple backend dbase... (Jet Database)

 

• You can integrate with the Web using active server page programming

 

• You can connect to MS Access even using a JDBC driver solution"