Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2017.

2016 has gone extremely fast and we at ProcessIT have had a very busy, exciting and productive year. We hope your year has been good too, but now it’s time for looking forward to celebrations, relaxing, holidays and planning for the 2017 year ahead.

An Exciting Year Ahead

A new year brings new opportunities for all. For us at ProcessIT, we are very encouraged by recent news from Microsoft; Microsoft ACCESS will now be included in all Office 365 Business plans! Why is this exciting you ask? Well Access is one of our primary development tools and for some years it was looking like Access was being ignored by Microsoft. Yes, there are other tools but few offer the speed, efficiency and flexibility of Access. Along with this news we also see Microsoft finally recommitting to Access with commitment to further enhance and support the product.

It was back in 2015 that it was looking like the end was approaching for Access. The “cloud first, mobile first” strategy, followed by the roll out of Office 365 business licences without Access looked like the end was coming for Access. Developers across the world screamed but to no avail.

What is Access?

Simply, Access is the BEST Rapid Application Development (RAD) software for Database and Data Management. It powerfully integrates data from various database formats and structures, allowing for business applications to read and analyse data from several different sources, to track and answer that key business need. Its automation saves significant time laying out screens and building business logic into your processes. Furthermore, as Access was, and now is again, part of the Office suite, it is designed to work flawlessly with Word, Excel and even Outlook for fully flexible solutions. At ProcessIT many of our Custom designs are based partially or full on Access, including the popular LEADS -Sales Prospecting and Contact Relationship Manager as well as the detailed and integrated SlottaTime – The Service Scheduling System.

What’s Changed?

Novembers formal announcement on the Office Blog was welcome news for Access Users and Developers worldwide. If you are already an Office 365 Subscriber “Access will be rolling out to Office 365 Business and Business Premium subscribers” with the updates rolling out until the end of January 2017. Additionally, Access will be enhanced with new Data Connectors for “OData Feed, Dynamics CRM, Salesforce and Amazon Redshift” to allow even more flexibility with these modern data sources and even more planned for future releases.

Listening!

It seems that Microsoft is finally listening to their Customers and the Development Community. Access can be a pivotal piece of the Office Suite and now with its future looking stable Software Developers like ProcessIT can be even more confident on the longevity of our solutions and applications.

 

 

Tech Tip:

Year-end always prompts me to double check on the Backup process. Don’t forget to manage and test your Backup routine. See last years Backup reminder on the ProcessIT Blog site for details…

 

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year for 2017…

Brian