i would like to host an access backend database on my computer and allow remote connections. every client will have their own access front end. is this a common practice? what would the connection string look like? ip address/localhost ??
would it be better to have a mysql backend? i need it over the internet?
I explain in details how and why a WAN (wide area network over the internet) will not work with a JET based back end with ms-access. The following article thus explains some choices and workarounds:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal//Wan/Wans.html
In a nutshell when you open a access database, you are opening a windows file, like word, or Excel, or whatever. So, there not really a concept of a connection string and even really anything more then a concept of opening a file. I outline some solutions in the above article, and you are most free to continue to use Access as the front end (forms/reports/code) etc, but over the internet, you need to use different technology then that of a standard windows file open.
Is this on a LAN or over the Internet? On a LAN, you can share the folder with your Access file on your pc and give users permission. They would need to link to your tables from their Access file. Over the Internet, you're going to have to find a solution to get through your file-wall and a lot of other security & connection issues.
You can share an Access database over the Internet using EQL Data: http://eqldata.com. There's a free 30-day trial.
(Full disclosure: I work for EQL Data.)
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I am tring to create an Access application.
I want the database (tables) to be online and the app (forms, reports) to be installed on each pc.
Is there any possible way to succeed this?
Will I need a dedicated server ?
Alternatively, is there any platform (free or not) that I can upload the whole Access app making it Web app?
I made a research and Sharepoint does not satisfy me at all.
Unfortunately, microsoft does not support Access web apps anymore.
Thanks in advance.
Your best and most low cost is SharePoint tables from an office 365 plan.
Remember, Access web publishing is NOT required if you migrate tables to SharePoint, and then place the front ends on each PC.
So even the most basic office 365 planes support SharePoint tables. (You don’t need Access web publishing for the SharePoint table feature). You one monthly plan of about $7 allows all 20 users to connect with the one account one $7 fee total for all 20 users.
You can’t use “files” like Access accDB ones over the internet with say OneDrive, or drop box etc. The reason for this is these web systems don’t support windows networking. So while you can pull a word file from such system, you cannot EDIT the file on that remote system. When you are done editing word, then you send the WHOLE file back up to the remote system and the word document is OVERWRITTEN.
Of course with Access, if each user were to OVERWRITE THE WHOLE file, then each user would thus always overwrite anything changed by any other user. So these systems do NOT support the ability to update ONLY BITS AND PARTS of the file. It is this “bits” and “parts” updating that allows two users to work at the same time and edit separate rows of data in the ONE file.
So Access is VERY different than the rest of office.
With word, or Excel, then you edit the document and then SAVE THE WHOLE document. That “saving” will thus overwrite the changes made by anyone else. So these “cloud” systems do NOT support the ability to only update “part” of the file – but only the WHOLE file.
Word, Excel etc. thus work on a “whole file” update model. However, Access requires the “special” ability of the windows file system that allows one to update ONLY PART of the file. And even more important is windows file system allows two people to update at the same time as long as they are updating “different” parts of the file.
What the above means is then you have to move the back end data file from a “file” based system to some kind of server database system. That means MySQL, SQL server, or SharePoint tables.
I made a research and Sharepoint does not satisfy me at all. Unfortunately, microsoft does not support Access web apps anymore.
I would not write off this choice. Access web publishing is NOT required for Access to use SharePoint tables. And that table option is VERY nice since such tables even work without the internet connection and will “sync” or “catch up” when you finally do get a decent internet connection. In other words this “sync” type of model is more like email then traditional links to a database.
This web based message system and technology is FAR BETTER than Access ODBC tables since “small” connection breaks that is common over the internet tends to make use of ODBC over the internet rather painful compared to SharePoint tables (they were built from the ground up with the internet in mind, while linked ODBC tables in Access were created 25 years ago, and they did not have the internet back then – so the design considerations of internet were not given to the ODBC choice.
I mean, you can make a car fly, but if you design the machine from the ground up as a plane as compared to a car, the result is a far better machine that flies. So there will be 100’s if not 1000’s of small choices made in the design of the product for its given intended use. So Access was around LONG before the internet – so most options don’t play nice over the internet. However the SharePoint table open is from the ground up based on internet connection technology – ones that often break, or even stop working.
I explain the table migration process to office 365 here:
https://youtu.be/3wdjYIby_b0?list=PL27E956A1537FE1C5
The other choice is to migrate the data to the Web hosting database system. Most web sites usually offer MySQL or SQL server as a database choice. However, ONE BIG detail is you have to find a web hosting provider that allows external ODBC connections. Today, less and less web hosting companies allow raw external connections to the database that drives the web site. (The reason of course is security).
So while say when you go to amazon to buy a book, the web site and web server system can pull information about books etc. from the database system. However, you on the outside cannot connect or link access to the database system that drives Amazon.
So while the web hosted server has full use of the database server, you as an external outside user (not from the web site) do not have such permissions.
So you need to find a provider that includes a database server, but in addition to allowing the web site to grab + pull data from database server, they also allow everyone on the planet who is connected to the wild and crazy internet to ALSO be able to connect to the database server (and by-pass the web site).
So as you can see, this is a big security risk because that database server now has to allow any crazy person on the internet to pull data from that database. I mean, I seen within say 5, or 10 minutes of opening up such database systems, you see 100’s if not 1000’s of logon attempts and people trying to link to your exposed tables! I mean, if all your users can link and see those tables, then so can the everyone else on the wild internet. So in a very short time automated bots will attempt to logon and link to those tables if they find someone crazy enough to “open” up their database system to allowing everyone to “link” or at least try to “link” to those tables.
So fewer and fewer web hosting companies allow external connections to the database that by-pass the web site. You need this by-pass the web site and go direct to database ability. The reason of course is Access is not connecting or linking to the web site, but needs to link DIRECTLY to the database system. (This thus has near nothing to do with the web site – you are to consume the database system, not the web system).
As noted, most simple is SharePoint and office 365. And this choice also has good performance WHEN the file sizes are limited and fit within the SharePoint table limits.
Another choice would be to purchase a monthly SQL Azure plan, and then again migrate your data from Access to SQL server. This setup will also work. They have a number of cool security features (you can restrict what IP address are allowed to connect for example).
Last but not least:
Your internet connection is about 10 times, or even 30 times slower than your normal office network. That means a typical wait time of say 3 seconds with your split application now on your office network will become a wait time of 30, or even 150 seconds if you connect over the internet (150 seconds = 2.5 minutes!!!!!).
This means you have to spend time optimizing the application for this setup. I explain this issue here:
http://www.kallal.ca//Wan/Wans.html
If you don't think this speed issue outlined in the above wans article does not apply to you then I suggest a re-reading it again and again until such time you realize this slower internet issue applies to you. Do the basic math - your internet connection will be 10 to 100 times slower then your cheap local office network. Do take more meds if you don't grasp this issue and don't think it applies to your case and use - it does.
One of the alternative options to Access Web App is PowerApps. It is one of the foremost suggestion to migrate Access Web Apps which is quite easy and powerful.
I have been trying to make an Inventory Management System. I have made the database on Access but I want the database to run online so that people from remote areas with different access levels can modify it in real time.
Is there a way I can store the .accdb file with access restriction? Or is there any online service hosting live databases of MS Access?
It depends on your infrastructure. The simplest (but worst as far as performance) is to set up VPN connections for remote users. Event better if you have the capability use Remote Web Workplace or a Remote Desktop server. Finally put all the tables on SQL Server or MySQL and distribute the front end. With any of these, as with any Internet facing service, you have to be very careful with your security precautions but it is possible to do any of these with adequate security.
If you know only one user will be working at it at a time you can use something like DropBox, Google drive or SkyDrive but that will not work if you want more than one user at a time. Access will not be able to "combine" the changes from multiple user accessing it this way.
I wanted to create a website that would be like a dropbox of sort, which just has files that me and my organization can access. I wanted to password protect the website, just a simple username and password. I have my own domain. I have been looking all over the web to find how to do this(I am a beginner) and found that using httaccess and htpasswd would be used to secure a website similar to what is shown here: http://www.htaccesstools.com/articles/password-protection/
But I cannot seem to get it to work. I am using the s3 bucket and putting the httaccess and htpasswd file in the same folder as the index.html file. Do you know how I would get my site to have a simple password protection(thats not seen in the source code or by typing in the html)? I am not sure if I am finding the directory correctly or not to implement this password protection correctly. Thank you for taking the time to read this and hopefully this makes sense!
Anyone else had this issue?
Amazon AWS alone won't do it. htaccess and htpasswd are also not the right tools for what you want to do.
Get yourself a cheap hosting account with a company like hostgator or godaddy or namecheap or any other that will host your web page and give you PHP and MySQL.
You cannot accomplish what you want just using javascript/jQuery. Those languages run on the browser, but you want to store your files on a server. Therefore, you need the language that controls the server - that is usually PHP. (The other popular solution is ASP, which is by Microsoft and runs on costly and complex Microsoft servers -- PHP is free and runs on (free) Linux and is therefore what ALL of the cheap web hosting companies provide. MySQL is the (free) database that is analogous to Microsoft SQL)
Next, watch a video tutorial on creating a PHP / MySQL login system, such as the ones over at:
phpAcademy (now called codecourse, apparently)
theNewBoston.com
You need to learn more about:
PHP sessions
Ajax
jQuery
MySQL (possibly)
On a basic website, you can stick your files into directories and control who can access those directories by whether or not they are logged in.
You can determine if a visitor is "logged-in" or not by asking for a username/password and setting a session variable. Session variables are just variables that are stored on the server, rather than on a user's own computer (of course, that wouldn't work since every visitor has his own computer and your files are stored on a central server -- so that is where the security (variables) must reside, right?)
Anyway, in a weekend of video watching and trial-and-error you can probably get something cobbled together that will do what you want.
We have a central Access database (with smaller peripheral databases attached) that we would like several users not in the same locality to work on through a network. We currently have the databases on OneDrive; we would also like to lock the database when it is being edited.
I see there is a relevant post that is 5 years old on StackOverflow:
Access database sharing strategies
We have the Office 365 version. Would the solution enable us to lock the databases when they are in use? Are there new solutions to help with our task? We are also willing to try other online storage options if they are better than OneDrive.
Thank you in advance.
The post you provide a link to is quote old now, and some of what it says it bang on still, but some of it is a little bit misleading.
Running an access file that is stored on onedrive sounds like a very bad idea to me.
The post mentioned "Windows Terminal Server". This is a good solution as in effect it allows multiple users to open their own copy of an access file that grabs data from a singel access database file stored on the machine they are accessing using WTS. You will need to investigate this more.
That said, I've never used the above.
I wanted to write as you should be aware that Access 2013 can be used with SQL Server to store it data. Some "slightly more expensive subscriptions designed for business" will give the subscribers access to Sharepoint and access 2013 can then be used to create "Access web apps", and Access makes it really easy to store the data on a SQL Server that is managed for you and really simple to use. Users can also enter and view data into what MS call "Access Views" which are essentiall basic access forms that can be used in a web browser.
My gut feeling is that the WTS route will be best for you.
It's worth noting that there can be considerable work to move data from an access file into SQL server using the MS tools. This depends on what features of access you use.
I have developed a few forms for analysing data on a access database. Now I would like to know if it would be possible to host the forms on a link over the net having the database in a different system. Basically I want the database to be in a different system, the user should see the forms and use it but all processing, must take place in the system where the database is. The user must then be able to see the results.
Is this possible?
No, it's not possible. The web has a separate client for user interaction (usually the browser) and a server for storage. Browsers do not support Access for GUI interaction.
However, you can still use Access for storage (although this is not advisable), but you will have to find a solution for converting the Access forms to web forms. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools available that can do that for you.
There are various limitations in Access/Sharepoint combination. Like union query is not supported in web access and other things. Access can be better deployed over net by using remote connection with mysql (or other server dedicated or cloud) as backend.
Since Access 2010, it is possible to run Access forms on-line. This can be seen in Access 2010: Outlook-Style Calendar in Browser, by Albert Kallal