Microsoft Access database replacement · UK
It was built years ago by somebody who has since left. It sits on a shared drive, it locks up when two people open it and it falls over every time Office updates. I rebuild it as a web application that runs in a browser: office PC, tablet wherever the work happens, phone on a customer's site.
Send me what you're running now and I'll tell you exactly what it would take to replace it, in writing, free.
The symptoms
If you have seen two or three of these, the database isn't ill. It's doing what Access does at this age, on this kind of network.
Unrecognised database format 'S:\Office\jobs.accdb'
Nobody changed anything. Office updated overnight and now the file won't open on half the machines.
The database has been placed in a state by user ADMIN on machine WKS-04 that prevents it from being opened or locked.
Someone else has it open. Or had it open, before their laptop went to sleep at four o'clock on Friday.
Microsoft Access has detected that this database is in an inconsistent state…
Compact and repair. Again. And hope nothing typed in this morning has gone.
Run-time error '429': ActiveX component can't create object
It works on the two old PCs and not on the new one and no one can tell you why.
The honest explanation
None of it is your fault and it usually isn't a sign the database was built badly. Four things are going on and they compound.
Access isn't self-contained. It leans on the ACE driver, the Access Database Engine that ships with Office. When Office updates, that driver changes. References the database relies on point at versions that are no longer there and forms that worked on Friday don't on Monday. The file didn't change. What it was standing on did.
Most of these databases were built against 32-bit Office, because for years that was the default. New PCs get 64-bit. VBA written for 32-bit fails outright on it and 32-bit drivers won't load in a 64-bit process. This is why a database can work perfectly on the machines it has always worked on and refuse to run on the replacement PC.
Access is not a client-server database. There is no server. Every PC opens the actual file across the network and writes straight into it. A dropped packet, a laptop lid closing mid-write, a Wi-Fi blip, someone yanking a network cable. The file is left half-written and inconsistent. That is where "needs to be repaired" comes from and each repair carries a real risk of losing rows.
Access handles several people at once by locking pages of the file, which is a blunt instrument: your record gets locked because someone else is editing a different record that happens to sit next to it. Microsoft quotes a ceiling of 255 concurrent users. In practice, on a normal office network, problems start well into single figures. Multi-user was bolted onto Access, not designed into it.
The replacement
A web application. Same fields, same job numbers, same rules, same way of working, running on something that was designed for the job from the start.
Have a proper go on a working example. It's live, with made-up data and there's nothing to sign up for.
The bit everyone asks first
It comes with you. All of it. Your tables get exported out of Access, checked and imported into the new application, so on day one you open it and your jobs, customers, parts and history are already there. You are not starting from an empty screen and you are not retyping ten years of records.
Your original file is never touched. I work from a copy. The .accdb stays exactly where it is, on your drive, doing what it does now, right up until you decide to switch over. If you read the blueprint and decide not to bother, you have lost nothing.
And it goes back out again whenever you want. Every screen exports to a spreadsheet, so your accountant, your auditor or the person who simply prefers Excel can have the data in a file they can open without asking me for anything. That matters more than it sounds: it means your data never stops being yours in a format you control.
One caveat worth stating plainly: the data comes across as it is. If ten years of typing has left three spellings of the same customer name, those three spellings arrive with it. I'll tell you what I spot, but I can't warrant historic data I didn't enter.
What it costs
Starting priceFrom £1,950
£1,950 is where it starts, not what everything costs. A database with five tables, two forms and a report is not a database with fifty tables, a dozen linked queries and twenty years of VBA behind it. Pretending otherwise would mean either quoting you a number I can't build to, or padding the price of the simple jobs to cover the hard ones.
So the blueprint comes first and it's free. You get the real figure in writing before you commit anything and that figure is fixed once you accept it. It doesn't move because the work turned out harder than I expected.
Quotes hold for 30 days. The only thing that changes a fixed price afterwards is finding that what I received is materially different from what was described: four linked workbooks instead of one, macros nobody mentioned, a second process bolted onto the first. In that case I'll either requote, which you're free to decline, or withdraw and refund your deposit in full.
How it works
Email me a copy of the .accdb, or a few screenshots if the file is too big or too sensitive to send. Tell me what it's meant to do.
Within two working days, in writing: what it would become, what it wouldn't do, how long it'd take and exactly what it'd cost. No charge, no obligation.
From two weeks. You get a link to try halfway through, not a surprise at the end. Half the fee up front, half when it's live.
Run both side by side for as long as you like. The Access file stays where it is until you're satisfied. Then you stop opening it.
After it's built
Your Access database didn't break the week it was written. It broke because the business moved, Office moved, the network moved and nothing moved with it. A new system goes the same way if nobody's looking after it.
Hosting, backups, security updates and small changes as you settle into it. Nothing to pay and nothing to set up. Alongside that, there's a 90-day warranty on defects. If it does not do what the blueprint said, I fix it.
You choose when you accept the quote and I'll remind you in writing a fortnight before the first payment is due. Cancel any time and you keep the software, the code and the data.
If you'd rather not take support: that's fine and it costs nothing. I keep it running for a further 30 days so you can arrange where it's going, then it comes off my hosting and stops working on the address I provided. The software is still yours. It just needs to live somewhere else. Your files and a full data export are free on request either way.
Where the line is
None of this is off the table. It's just more work, so it costs more and takes longer. Told to you now, rather than halfway through the job.
Everything on that list is possible: customer portals, dashboards, photo evidence, reminders, barcode scanning, certificates generated as PDFs. It's a bigger job with a bigger price. Say what you're after in your first email and the blueprint will tell you what it'd take, free either way.
Questions
Sometimes and if that's genuinely the cheaper answer I'll say so in the blueprint. But most of the failures above are structural. A file being written to over a network by several people isn't a fault to be patched, it's how Access works. Repairing it buys you time rather than fixing the cause.
Not usually. I'm rebuilding what the database does, not lifting the code out of it. What I need is the tables, the forms as they appear on screen and someone who can explain the rules: what happens when a job gets marked complete, how the price is worked out, which fields are mandatory. That conversation is worth more than the source code.
Right up to the day you switch and afterwards if you want. I work from a copy, so your file carries on as normal throughout. Most people run both for a week or two, then quietly stop opening the old one.
You take everything. The application files and a full export of your data are yours free on request, whenever you ask, whether or not you're paying for support. There's an optional £250 handover pack if you want it done properly: the files, the export, a written guide covering deployment, backup and restore, plus an hour on a call with whoever's taking it on.
No to both. It's hosted and it runs in a browser. If your staff can open a website, they can use it.
I do. There's no team, no account manager and nobody in a call centre. You email me, I answer, I build it, which is also why I take on a few of these at a time and will tell you early if yours isn't a good fit.
Related
Who you'd be dealing with
Joe Thorp
My trade is inspection: looking at something complicated, working out what's actually wrong with it and saying so plainly. Twenty years of it, in an industry where getting it wrong isn't an option.
An Access database that's been patched for eight years has exactly the same tells as a part that's been repaired one too many times. Somebody made a sensible decision, then another, then a workaround and the sum of them is a thing nobody trusts but everybody depends on. Reading that is the job I've always done.
Which is also why the blueprint is free and why it sometimes says don't bother. I'd rather tell you the truth about a database than sell you a replacement you didn't need.
Start here
Attach a copy of the .accdb, or a few screenshots if it's too big to email. Tell me in a line or two what it's supposed to do. Within two working days you'll get a written breakdown: what it would become, how long it'd take and exactly what it'd cost.
The blueprint is free whether or not you ever hire me. No sales call unless you ask for one.