Ms-access – Access 2007 Work in a separate file using ACCDE

ms access

Have been working in an Access 2007 application for over 3 weeks and it should be ready now. Anyway, I know (and tried) that "Make ACCDE" can actually split the raw data from the application itself so you can run it using the Access RunTime.

The question is… can I deploy my app for general use and modify a separate copy of the forms/views inside the application to deploy it when it´s ready without touching the data?

Best Answer

Yes, you can (and you should!!) split your application into two Access databases:

  1. A backend containing all the tables.
    Put this somewhere on a central network share.

  2. A frontend containing code, forms, records and so on...basically everything except the actual tables (which are in the backend).
    You can link the tables from the backend here, and each user should have his own copy of the frontend on his local machine.
    It's quite easy to deploy the frontend in a way that it auto-updates each time a user runs it.

If you split your app this way, you can just deploy it now and your users can start using it.
Later, you can modify the forms and reports (or add new ones) and just deploy a new version of the frontend to your users, without them even really noticing it.