marcandregodat
consulting

What are your concerns? Where are your pain points? Let me find out in an initial, non-binding discussion whether I can help you with your projects using my specialist knowledge and services.

If its a GO, the next step is a careful and comprehensive analysis of your needs to get an overview about scope, schedule, other stakeholders and a rough cost estimate.

I could also conduct a half/one-day requirements workshop for you. It is an important tool for understanding and validating the goals and expectations for a future solution or modification. The workshop team includes key stakeholders to work on the relevant requirements and ensure that they are sensible and feasible.

Even in 2024, MS Access is still an excellent RAD (rapid-application-development) Tool; it can be used to quickly create POCs (proof-of-concept) or even individual database systems with user-friendly interfaces that are ideally embedded in the MS landscape.

My experience has shown that the development of an MS-Access solution only costs a fraction of what a modern web solutions costs. So if you have a company-wide LAN, MS Office and use Windows PCs, an MS Access solution can save you a lot of money and complexity.

Do you have complex MS-Excels with lots of worksheets, formulas and data ranges, perhaps even spread across multiple files because muany users have to work on them? Then Excel quickly reaches its limits!!

Many of my MS-Access customer projects are replacements for overloaded Excel applications. The advantages of MS-Access over Excel are:

• Structured data sources: You do not "just" use data ranges but use real database tables instead.
• Structured design: Instead of constantly repeating formulas, you use once-defined queries or functions which prevents inconsistencies.
• Since you have a database as your data souce, queries and evaluations become much easier.
• The user interface becomes much more streamlined and simplyfied as you only present the user with exactly what he is interested in or needs to manage.
• Multiple users can work simultaneously without any conflicts, which is almost impossible in Excel.

Unfortunately, MS Access does not exactly have the best reputation among IT-Managers. Applications are often created and developed by SMEs without comprehensive IT or data modeling knowledge, which then become virtually unmaintainable when the relevant people leave the company.

Here I can help you to "clean up" a bit and see which of the following tasks might still make sense or how your application can be expanded or modernized:

• Removal of unnecessary legacy objects / code.
• Identify potential vulnerabilities or security gaps.
• Extend existing applications with newly required features.
• Separating your data from the user interface (split into front/back-end).
• Migration of your data from MS-Access to MS-SQL Server.
• Modernizing the user interface.
• Short and concise documentation for future-proof operation.

If you are using MS-Access applications but lack internal support, I can offer you 2nd/3rd-level support. The requirements are:

1. I will do a thorough analysis of the application and identify the work that still needs to be done to bring the application into a maintainable state; This work should then be carried out first to ensure smooth operation.
2. Together we will setup a knowledge base for 1st-level support, which includes operational information and the most frequently occurring problems.
3. You will then setup and operate the 1st-level support; This is always the first point of contact for users if they have problems with the application.
4. From then on I can take over 2nd/3rd level support for more complex or new problems and also support you with any further developments.

Do you already have an application manager or do you want to keep development in-house? No problem: I am also happy to do coaching, where you set the course and I can impart my knowledge and professional approach on a 1:1 basis.