December 11, 2011

We’re pleased to announce publication of a new, first-of-its-kind, book on Access 2010 and SharePoint 2010.

UtterAccess members and administrators Ben Clothier and George Hepworth have teamed with Tim Runcie, a former Access MVP and current Project MVP, to write “Microsoft Access in a SharePoint World”. Tim’s company, Advisicon, is publishing the book.

MASW covers the essentials of working with Access 2010 and SharePoint 2010 to create data-driven, web-enabled databases that run in the browser from a SharePoint Site. The goal was to place Access in context within the SharePoint world, so the book includes additional discussions about the other wonderful tools SharePoint brings to the table: project management, document management, and team collaboration.

MASW assesses the suitability of Access as a web or client solution in a SharePoint world and shows how they are a natural fit.

MASW also addresses design considerations that may challenge experienced developers designing a Access web application for the first time.

MASW discusses using Access as a client to SharePoint data, which offers several advantages, such as working offline, seamless synchronization, and a high level of integration. The book also addresses the ramifications of choosing SharePoint as a data source and the difference between SharePoint's architecture and ODBC data sources.

Finally, MASW offers a brief glimpse into using SharePoint tools such as SharePoint Designer and InfoPath and manipulating the SharePoint object model with SOAP and JavaScript to make your Access on SharePoint databases more professional, and conclude with a discussion of security and deployment.

For more details or to buy the book, you can visit the Advisicon store store. Tim has offered discount of $10 off to the first 10 buyers—use coupon code "save10bucks".

Congrats Gents!

Gord (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)

Ben, George, and Tim:

Congratulations on the publication of your book! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yayhandclap.gif)

Sounds like it would be a great addition to anyone's library.

Cheers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)

Congratulations George, Ben, and Tim.

George, if it is written as well as Grover Park George on Access, the new book will be eminently readable, and eminently informative for its targeted audience.

Glenn

Gentlemen, congrats on the publication. As many hours that I spend browsing shelves in our local bookstore, I have yet to see one that is devoted specifically to Access and Sharepoint collaboration. While I don't know Tim, I couldn't think of two more qualified people for this topic than Ben and George.

I think a much needed informational gap has just been filled. No doubt your documented experience will prove invaluable to those looking to work Access on a cloud.

Congrats again,

Thank you, Jack, but I feel obliged to point out that we're certainly not the only qualified people. We've been extremely fortunate to have the privilege of Jeff Conrad and Albert Kallal review the book for us. Frequent visitors to UA have benefitted from their expertise as well. Their feedback was invaluable and I hope it shows in the final product.

Two names that have been rightly engraved in the list of Access's Best of the Best. All the better! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumbup.gif)

Ben, George, and Tim:

Congratulations on the publication of your book! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/compute.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yayhandclap.gif)

Sadly not yet available to us locally across the big blue pond..
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So far as I know, it's only being sold on the Advisicon website at the moment.

This is hands-down the best reference book I've ever purchased, and that's a LOT of books. Well-written, understandable, and directly targeted at moving Access from the client to the web. If you're going to purchase just one book on this topic, this is the book to buy!

dg_moore -

I'm so gratified to hear that the book was of use to you and more importantly that it was accessible. I'll say that it was NOT easy to keep it approachable, given the natural complexity of SharePoint + web architecture and the change of paradigm.

If I may, what would make the book better?

I can attest. Having had the book around for a few weeks, I just finally started getting into it over this past weekend. While I haven't undertaken any sharepoint/web db projects yet, I have an "invested interest" in them (I will be using them at some point).

From an experienced "classic" Access developer's point of view, the book is particularly helpful in letting us know how to approach the scenario of utilizing sharepoint and web design. It makes clear that a different approach is a requirement, and further goes to explain in good detail how we must adjust our approach, why we must adjust our approach, and helps much in explaining and overcoming what would often be considered less than stellar practices for traditional Access (RDBMS practice as well, not just Access). This alone would be very difficult without some hand-holding.

The book touches on all points regarding design practice, from conceptual to task-based.

Additionally, we get a much needed introduction to SharePoint, from the Access developers point of view. SharePoint is a vast tool, and an Access developer trying to find pertinent information on what it means to us online or through other usual venues will have a very difficult time with this. The book does a great job aquianting us with those portions of Sharepoint that we need be concered with.

All in all, I give the book a shining 5 stars. The information is invaluable and cannot be found elsewhere. Though I must admit I found the price to be a little more than what I'm used to, the content is simply amazing. I'd easily put it in with my top 5 reference books I've purchased, and I have a bookshelf full of them.

And I'm pretty critical when it comes to this stuff...

A must have for anyone looking to move to web databases. The authors have smoothed the wheel so we don't have to.

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Just ordered it an madly looking forward to it!

I've taken on some development work with Access and Sharepoint at work and I've been looking for a good reference to dive into.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Awesome! When you get it and have derived into it, do feel free to post back with comments/feedbacks -- we're always interested in how we can improve the book.

Thanks, and please do let us know where we you see places we can improve or expand it.

Hello,
I am interested in the new book on Access 2010 and Sharepoint 2010 "Microsoft Access in a Sharepoint World". I currently do charting in Access through "Reports" and I have attempted to figure out how I can connect to the report/chart in Access to display it in Sharepoint. Does the book address this? Today, we have multiple access databases that feed data to the web...we are looking to see if Sharepoint can support what we need.

Is the coupon code for the book (save10bucks) still valid?

Thanks
Cheryl

Welcome to UtterAccess.

"I have attempted to figure out how I can connect to the report/chart in Access to display it in Sharepoint."

I'm not sure that's feasible. MASW is primarily about using Access 2010 to publish browser-enabled databases to SharePoint 2010. Note that this capability was introduced in the 2010 version.

Tell us a bit more about this comment.

"we have multiple access databases that feed data to the web"
How does that work now?

If the coupon code is still on the site, I would expect them to honor it.