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Chapter 1: Publishing Access

Applications

In This Chapter

✓ Designing SharePoint-compatible Access Databases

✓ Understanding how your Access objects map to SharePoint

✓ Publishing your Access application to Access Services

✓ Creating your Access Web database site templates

ccess Services is a new feature that comes with SharePoint Server

2010 Enterprise Edition, bringing the power and agility of Access appli-

cations into the flexible, scalable, and easily reachable SharePoint environ-

ment. When Access Services is up and running in your organization, here’s

what you get:

✦ You can extend the reach of your Access database applications to the

Web by publishing them to SharePoint Server 2010.

✦ Integrating the Access client application with SharePoint’s Access

Services architecture means a single click gets Access up and running in

SharePoint — providing all your users with a centrally managed, Web-

accessible version of Access.

✦ Publishing your Access application to SharePoint means that you have

only one instance of the application to manage — gone are the days of

distributing multiple copies of your database software throughout your

organization.

✦ When a user adds, removes, or modifies data, those changes are auto-

matically accessible to all other users.

✦ You can easily control the roles and access permissions on your data-

base application by using standard SharePoint permissions.

✦ Any functional or schematic updates you make to the database appli-

cation can be seamlessly synchronized with SharePoint, ensuring that

your users are always working with the most up-to-date version of your

application.

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COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

Summary of content (24 pages)

PAGE 1
Chapter 1: Publishing Access Applications AL In This Chapter ✓ Designing SharePoint-compatible Access Databases RI ✓ Understanding how your Access objects map to SharePoint ✓ Publishing your Access application to Access Services TE ✓ Creating your Access Web database site templates MA A TE D ccess Services is a new feature that comes with SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition, bringing the power and agility of Access applications into the flexible, scalable, and easily reachable SharePoint en
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608 Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases In Book III, Chapter 1, we look at the architecture behind Access Services, and examine the settings that can help keep both your Access applications and your SharePoint environment running smoothly. In this chapter, we hop on board the Access Services train again to show you how easy it is to publish your Access applications to SharePoint Server 2010.
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Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases 609 Creating an Access Web database Here’s how to create an Access Web database from the Access 2010 client that can be published to Access Services: 1. Launch the Access 2010 client. 2. From the File menu, click New. A list of the available Access templates appears. 3. From the list of available templates, select Blank Web Database and then click Create. Figure 1-1 shows the list of available Access templates that appear in the Access 2010 client.
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610 Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases SharePoint site based on one of these templates, you can publish, edit, customize, and synchronize your changes by using controls that appear in the Access 2010 client application. Access Services is a new feature that comes with SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition. If you don’t have an Enterprise license, the Access Web Database site templates won’t appear in your SharePoint Gallery.
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Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases 611 an application under development. You can assign, prioritize, and follow the progress of issues from start to finish. ✦ Projects Web Database: Use this site template to create a project-tracking Web database that you can use to follow the progress of multiple projects stage by stage, and assign tasks to members of your team.
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12 Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases 9. Choose whether your new site will inherit permissions: • Use same permissions as parent site: Choose this option if you want the new site to inherit the permission structure from its parent site. • Use unique permissions: Choose this option if you want to specify permissions for the new site.
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Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases 613 Okay, we’re not talking furniture here (but you knew that). In Access, a table is a database object that stores information about an entity. For example, an Employee table may store information relating to all the employees in your company.
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614 Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases You can access the Forms Ribbon by clicking the Create tab in Access. The Form commands include these: ✦ Form: Creates a Web form that allows you to enter data one record at a time. Web forms can only be created for tables or Web queries. ✦ Multiple Item: Creates a Web form that shows multiple records at once. Continuous forms can only be created for table or Web queries. ✦ Blank Form: Creates a Web form that contains no controls or formatting.
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Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases 615 Figure 1-4: You can create a two-level navigation bar. Macros Access 2010 provides a new and improved Macro Builder — also referred to as the Macro Designer — to allow you to add logic to your database to automate repetitive tasks and create a more usable interface. Using the Macro Builder you can quickly define conditions and actions for your macros.
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616 Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases 3. Build your business logic using the Action Catalog. 4. On the File tab, click Save to save your macro. The macros that you create appear under the Macros in the navigation tree. Figure 1-5: You can drag and drop conditions and actions from the Action Catalog. Data macros Data macros are new with Access 2010 and allow you to add logic that is triggered when specific events occur on a table — such as adding, updating, or deleting data.
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Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases 617 ✦ After Update: Allows you to create logic that runs after a record has been edited in the table. ✦ After Delete: Allows you to create logic that runs after a record has been deleted from the table. ✦ Named Macro: Allows you to create, edit, delete, or rename data macros that can be called from a macro or from event code.
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618 Designing SharePoint-Compatible Access Databases Reports Reports help you present the data in your database visually — in the format your business users require. For example, you can create a report that makes use of charts and graphs if those get your point across best. Figure 1-7 shows an example of a Web report created for the Products table in the Northwind Traders sample Access Web database.
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Publishing to Access Services 619 to that SharePoint site, you’ll want to present your users with a form that acts as the launching pad for your application. The form should contain navigation components so your users can cruise easily from one form or report to another. Here’s how to set the default Web form that appears in your SharePoint site: 1. Using your browser, navigate to the SharePoint site that hosts your Web database application. 2. From the title bar, click Options ➪ Open in Access.
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620 Publishing to Access Services Microsoft Access 2010 provides enough tools and wizards that you can easily create sophisticated Web database applications without writing a single line of code. Publishing your database applications to Access Services extends their reach, which makes Microsoft Access a powerful development platform for SharePoint.
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Publishing to Access Services 621 ✦ Access Reports = SQL Server Reporting Services Reports (.rdl): Reports that you create in your Access database application are converted to RDL files (Report Definition Language — you can find out more about that in Book III, Chapter 1). Then they’re presented using SQL Server Reporting Services; the Report Viewer Web Part renders the reports in the browser.
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622 Publishing to Access Services Checking Web compatibility Your Access Web database applications can be shared across your organization by being published to Access Services. If your database contains items and settings that aren’t compatible with Access Services, your application won’t publish correctly. Use the Compatibility Checker that Access provides to check your database before you publish it to SharePoint. If compatibility problems turn up, they land in a table called Web Compatibility Issues.
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Publishing to Access Services 623 ✦ The Compatibility Checker is highlighted in red to indicate that errors turned up. (It’s not embarrassed; it just looks that way.) ✦ This status message appears: The database is incompatible with the Web. Press Web Compatibility Issues to see errors. ✦ The Web Compatibility Issues button is enabled. Figure 1-9 shows the Compatibility Checker for a database that isn’t Webcompatible. Figure 1-9: Access lets you know if your application isn’t Webcompatible.
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624 Publishing to Access Services Figure 1-11: OLE Object data types aren’t compatible with publishing to the Web. Oops. The first time you publish your application to Access Services, you use the Publish to Access command to deploy your application. Follow these steps to publish your application: 1. Open your Web database application in Access 2010. 2. Click the File tab to present the Access Backstage View. 3. Click the Save & Publish tab. The save and publishing options appear. 4.
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Publishing to Access Services 625 Figure 1-12: The Publish command appears under the Compatibility Checker. Figure 1-13: Access notifies you if the publishing process fails. Book IV Chapter 1 Publishing Access Applications When your database application is published, the Publish to Access command is no longer available. The command that replaces it is the Sync All — which synchronizes your changes with the SharePoint server.
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626 Publishing to Access Services Before you can publish your Access Web database application, you must have Designer permissions in the SharePoint site to which you want to publish. Viewing the Application Log In addition to the Compatibility Checker table, you can check for error notifications in the Application log (USysApplicationLog) for any server-side errors that may have occurred during the publishing process. Follow these steps to view the Application log: 1.
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Publishing to Access Services 627 When you open your Access Web database application from SharePoint, you are (in effect) opening an offline copy of your database application. But not to worry: Any changes you make while offline can be synchronized back to the server. Opening the database from the Site Settings page Here’s how to open your published Web database application in Access: 1. Using your browser, navigate to your SharePoint Web database site. 2.
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628 Publishing to Access Services Synchronizing your changes with SharePoint After you’ve initially published your Access Web database to Access Services, the way you synchronize all subsequent database modifications and customizations with SharePoint is to use the Sync All command in the Access client application. Here’s how to synchronize your database application changes to SharePoint: 1. Open your Web database application in Access 2010. 2. Click the File tab to present the Access Backstage View. 3.
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Publishing to Access Services 629 4. From the list of file types, click Template (*.accdt). The Create New Template from This Database dialog box appears. 5. Enter a Name and Description for your template. 6. Select an Icon that you’d like to use for your template. 7. In the Instantiation Form field, select the form you want to appear as the default display form. 8.
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630 Book IV: Using the SharePoint Services