• Sunday 01st February 2026
• 18

Access Skills Course

What is Access and what are its uses?

Access 2019, the latest version of the Microsoft Office suite of database software, has always been a powerful program, and this version is as widely used as its previous versions. Of course, these high capabilities and features have made Access a software that cannot be easily learned. If you ask what is Access software good for? We must tell you that the list of things you can do as a database with Access is much longer than the list of things you cannot do with it.

Some of the reasons why Excel is superior include the following:

Typically, a large database has a lot of data entry needs, which Access provides well.

When you have a large number of records, the possibility of errors increases, and we use Access software to prevent this.

Large databases mean the urgent need for accurate and insightful reporting.

When you want to find something among the information, databases make it easier for you.

Wide access to data saves time.

Access Applications

Access offers a variety of features for different types of databases. You can use Access to develop a variety of applications:

Personal applications

Small business applications

Office applications

Extensive applications

Front-end applications for client/server databases

Web applications

Development Platform for Personal Applications

At the entry level, you can use Access to develop simple, personal database management systems. One thing to be careful of is that Access can seem deceptively easy to use. Access's excellent built-in wizards make it a product that anyone can use. After going through a series of steps and questions in the wizard, the application is built and you can easily access the various parts of the application, data entry forms, reports, and supporting tables.

In fact, when Microsoft first released Access, many people believed that the job of a programmer or computer instructor was being downplayed because it seemed like anyone could write a database application using Access. Although the simplest Access applications can be designed and produced very simply without any ideas, most applications require at least some design and customization.

If you are not an end user and do not want to spend a lot of time learning the intricacies of Access, then using the Access wizards to create your own applications will satisfy you. You can change some of the parts created by the wizard and there will be no problem. This is when you want to customize a personal application without having a good basic knowledge.

Development Platform for Small Business Applications

Access is a great platform for building and developing applications that run a small business. With its wizards, you can quickly and easily build the foundation of the application. The ability to create macros and code modules allows users and professional developers to create a library of reusable code, and the ability to add code to forms and reports allows them to create more powerful custom forms and reports.

The time and cost during the development process are the main limitations of using Access to develop a small, custom application. Many people use Access wizards to start the development process, but then find that they cannot customize their applications on their own. Small business owners often experience this problem even more than individual users. The demand for a small business application is usually much higher than for personal applications. Many doctors, lawyers, and other professionals seek help from a professional after they reach an impasse in the development process.

Development Platform for Office Applications

Access is great for developing applications for different departments in large companies. Most departments in large companies allocate a budget to produce well-designed applications. Most departments usually have a computer expert who helps with the design of forms and reports. This allows each department to have a unique application. If a complex form, report preparation or programming is needed, large companies usually have internal resources and support who can provide the necessary assistance. If there is no support, they delegate the work to specialists outside the company.

Development Platform for Extensive Applications

In addition to being the best option for office applications, Access is also useful for producing extensive and global applications. The level of success depends on the company. There are limitations; for example, a limit on the number of users who can use the application simultaneously while maintaining efficiency or a limit on the number of records entered into a table without a significant drop in its performance. The number and extent of these limitations depend on various factors; Such as:

How much traffic is on the network?

How much RAM does the server have and how many processors does the server have?

How is the server being used? For example, are applications like Microsoft Office loaded from the server or from clients?

What types of tasks do the users of the application perform? For example, are they searching? Are they entering data? Are they running reports? …

Where do Access and Access applications run? (Server or user system)

What is the network operating system?

Experience has shown that Access applications that are not based on client/server networks and have more than 10-15 concurrent users and more than 100,000 records will perform poorly. Remember that these numbers depend on the factors mentioned and what you and your users consider acceptable performance. If these limitations are on the back-end (server side), you should consider Access as the front-end (client side) to a client/server database, meaning you can use Access to build forms and tables while the storage in the tables and queries are done on the server side of the database.

Front-end for client/server applications

A client/server database, such as SQL Server or Oracle, processes queries on the server side and returns the results to the user's system. The server software cannot display the data to the user, and this is where Access comes in. Access, as the client-side component, can display the data returned from the server in reports, Excel sheets, or forms. If the user changes the data in the Access form, the user's system sends these changes to the database on the server side. Finally, you can either connect to the database, where the data is accessible to you and your users through tables, or use techniques to access the client/server data directly.

Tools for Web Application Development

You can use Access to build web applications, applications that run in a browser. Access's web capabilities have been greatly expanded since Access 2013.