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Starting with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, users were
allowed to move away from storing their Access database files on file
shares and storing the Access databases in SharePoint libraries,
providing ways for users to collaborate with Access databases. You can
also move data held in Access tables to SharePoint lists, replacing the
lists in the Access database as linked tables that will allow updates
in SharePoint lists to be reflected in the Access table and vice versa.
The data in the linked tables is stored locally on the user’s computers
and enables users to work offline with data. By centralizing your
organization’s Access databases and content within SharePoint, you help
manage corporate data and improve the ease of access over traditional
unmanaged file shares.
However, there are some performance issues with this approach, and
it did not allow users to model some of the more complex scenarios
built using Access; therefore, new with the Enterprise edition of
SharePoint Server 2010 was the ability to create a SharePoint site
based on an Access database. This has been extended in SharePoint 2013
with a new, completely rewritten, Access Services service application.
SharePoint Server 2013 now contains two Access Services service applications:
-
Access Services 2010
. This mimics the Access service application on the
Enterprise edition of SharePoint Server 2010, by which the tables in
your Access database are stored as SharePoint lists on the site that
was built from an Access web database site definition. -
Access Services
. When Access 2013 databases are published to
SharePoint 2013, an Access web app site is created and your data is now
stored in a full-fledged SQL Server database, which is automatically
generated in an instance of SQL Server 2012 that was selected by a
SharePoint administrator.
Note
To use either of these service applications, Enterprise Client Access Licenses (CALs) are required.
Using the Access service application, you can quickly build no-code, web-based form applications, known as web apps.
These web apps are SharePoint apps that can be deployed to SharePoint
App Stores. With SharePoint Designer 2013 being deemphasized as a
no-code forms tool, Access web apps is a welcome addition.
A
SharePoint 2013 Access web app will not have the same limitations that
SharePoint 2010 Access web databases had in terms of numbers of fields
and sizes of tables. This SQL-integrated approach improves the
performance, manageability, and scalability of the web app. It also
makes it possible for SQL Server developers to extend the solution by
directly connecting to the tables in the database, including building
reports with Desktop Access Reports, Excel, and Power View. However, as
the data is not stored in SharePoint, some functionality is lost when
compared to creating a forms-based application by using InfoPath. For
example, you cannot create or initiate a SharePoint workflow on data in
Access form applications, nor can you have unique permissions at the
list or row level; however, they have far more capabilities for rich
forms and reports than were provided in Access Services 2010.
The databases created have a name, such as, db_<guid>, where
<guid> is an automatically generated number. The tables, queries,
macros, and forms are all stored in this database. Whenever a user
visits the app, enters data, or modifies the design of the app by using
the browser or Access 2013, she will be interacting with the database;
however, the UI will give no indication of this. This does have
implications for your database administrator, as well as the
operational-level agreements your IT department might have with the
business with regard to the maintenance of these Access 2013 web app
databases.
The servers that run SQL Server 2012 where the Access web apps
databases are to be created do not have to be the same SQL Server
instance that SharePoint uses. In fact, it is recommended that the
databases for the Access web apps use a different SQL Server instance
than the one used for the SharePoint databases. It must be a SQL Server
2012 server configured in mixed security mode, though, because you
cannot use previous version of SQL Server to host Access Services
databases. Office 365 uses SQL Azure.
Moving Access data into SharePoint lists
If you do not want to use Access Services, you can link to data held
within SharePoint sites. The Access client application allows users to
import data, export data, and link to data in SharePoint lists and
libraries. The Access file can be uploaded into a SharePoint library,
thereby making it easy for users with the access client to share access
databases. As the data is held in SharePoint, you can use many of the
SharePoint features, such as the alert feature, to inform users when an
update to the database content has occurred. You can also run workflows
against the data and content managed within SharePoint can be restored
like other files in SharePoint using the Recycle Bin, so SharePoint
provides a backup benefit to Access users.
A user can move existing content from an Access database into
SharePoint via the Move Data SharePoint wizard within Access. This
feature exports all the current tables of the database into SharePoint
lists. The lists will have all the standard features of SharePoint
lists, including the ability to add, delete, and modify content. These
links are stored within the Access database along with the other
standard Access items such as reports, forms, and queries.
Note
The
Export Tables To SharePoint wizard is a powerful and easy-to-use tool,
but when moving an existing database into SharePoint, you need to
consider the database’s size in addition to the performance of your
overall environment. An Access Services web-based solution may be more
applicable.
To use the Export Tables To SharePoint wizard in Access, perform the following steps:
-
On the Database Tools tab, shown here, click SharePoint in the Move Data group.
-
In the Export Tables To SharePoint wizard dialog box, specify the
SharePoint site where the data should be moved. While the wizard is
running, you can cancel the operation at any time by clicking Cancel. -
Once the wizard has completed, select Show Details to display the details of the move.
The move process takes a backup of your Access database, creates
SharePoint lists for each table in your database, and then replaces the
tables with linked tables. By default, the name of the table is used
for the name of the new SharePoint lists if the list name already
exists on the SharePoint site, a number will be appended to the name of
the list.
Note
If you receive a warning message during this process, you should
review the log table to confirm that all the data was properly moved
and to determine if any actions are necessary on your part to allow for
a successful data move.
Should you only want to export or import a single table to
SharePoint, in the All Tables window, right-click the table that you
want to export and then, from the context menu, select Export and then
click SharePoint List, as shown in Figure 1,
to display the Export – SharePoint Site dialog box. You can also find
the SharePoint List option on the More split button on the External
Data tab in the Export group.
In the Export – SharePoint Site dialog box, enter the site where you
want to create a new list, provide a name for the new list, and then
click OK. Any related tables will also be moved to SharePoint.
By default, the browser will open and display the list just created. You can save the export steps for later reuse, as shown in Figure 2.
Note
Users exporting Access tables to SharePoint will need to have the
permissions to create lists in order to use the export to SharePoint
lists commands.
If the data already resides in a SharePoint list and you want to use
it within an Access database, you can either copy the data into a new
Access table or create a linked table that points to the SharePoint
list. You can open the Get External Data – SharePoint Site dialog box
by right-clicking a table in the All Tables pane or by clicking
SharePoint List on the More menu on the External Data tab in the Import
& Link group, as shown in Figure 3.
To
save an Access database file to a SharePoint library, navigate to the
Save As tab on the Backstage view and, in the right pane, under
Advanced, select SharePoint.
Note
From the browser, you can create a new Access database from
a SharePoint list. The list can become either a linked table in the new
Access database or the data from the list can be copied to a new table
in the database.
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