DevCon

Latest Innovations and the Road Ahead

Join us while we demonstrate and explore innovations driving Access forward:

•  Latest Dataverse integration enhancements
•  Advanced Macro security features to secure your data
•  Next-generation browser control to flawlessly surfacing modern web sites
•  Peer into the future as our panel of speakers provide exciting details of new features and improvements that are sure to shape the platform for years to come.

Of course, the engineering team will answer questions from the DevCon audience. So, think about what you want to know and what no one has ever asked before.

                 
                 Dale Rector                    Joe Jimenez
     Principal Engineering Manager
                  
              Courtney Owen             Sachin Arunkumar

twinBASIC is a modern version of the classic BASIC programming language that is 100% backward compatible with VBA. twinBASIC made its debut at DevCon Vienna two years ago. Last year, I demonstrated how it could be used by Access developers right away.

This year, with the upcoming release of version 1, we'll look ahead to the future of twinBASIC and Access.

•  Brief introduction and overview of twinBASIC
•  Updates on the project's progress over the past year
•  Demo: tools built in twinBASIC available to Access developers today
•  twinBASIC: a future migration path for Access projects?
 

Mike is a Microsoft Access MVP who has been developing in Access and SQL Server since 2007. He earned a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the US Military Academy (West Point) in 2002.

Since 2014, he has served as president and owner of Grandjean & Braverman, Inc., a small software development company specializing in Access applications.

Mike is one of the top 15 all-time contributors in the MS Access topic at StackOverflow (user: mwolfe02). He also writes *daily* about advanced Access and VBA topics on his blog, nolongerset.com.

Not all bugs are created equal. Avoid the expensive ones by making more of the ones that are easy to find and fix. Bugs are easiest to fix immediately after you create them. The longer a bug goes undiscovered, the longer it will take to fix (and the more damage it can do in the meantime).

Every programmer wants to write bug-free software, but that's not realistic. Certain programming practices can help minimize the impact of the bugs that we do write.

In this presentation, I'll cover seven different types of bugs. More importantly, I will provide you with techniques you can use to turn hard-to-find, expensive-to-fix bugs into bugs that are easier to find and less costly to fix.

In the last 2 years there has only been 1 major new feature in Access, the Dataverse connector. Why did the Access team at Microsoft postpone everything else for it? What is Dataverse anyway, what possibilities does it offer? And what do Access developers get out of it?

•  Structure+Technology: Azure SQL and Services, Management, Security
•  Added value: Environments, Solutions, Data Flows, Connectors, Virtual Tables
•  Costs/Benefits: Licences, limits, possibilities
•  Connector in Access: upgrading Access data, creating and integrating tables
•  Practical experience with Dataverse jobs and customers

Ynte Jan has been working as developer and trainer since the 80s. He is extremely solution-oriented and chooses his tools accordingly, be it Visual Studio, Access, SQL Server or not from MS.
In recent years, he has focused on the Microsoft Power Platform. He is a certified Power BI Data Analyst and is working more and more with Dataverse in this context.

Ynte Jan has given many trainings and presentations on programming, database and BI topics at numerous conferences.

using easy-to-call VBA

Access applications are not exactly known for presenting data in a graphically interesting and easy to digest way. Reports are mostly just data listings, mainly because we have no built-in graphical tools other than charts. With some VBA, imagination and a playful spirit, however, this can be remedied:

•  Use VBA to draw gadgets that respond to data
•  Modify objects by specifying colors and angles
•  Draw graphs differently depending on the data
•  Scale gadgets for the available space and position them where desired
•  Get VBA code you can look at, learn from, and use in your Access projects

Hosting your Access application in an Azure Virtual Machine (VM) has a number of benefits, including remote availability, single-machine installation and configuration, and support for non-Windows user environments.

We’ll go through in detail, with a live demo, of all you need to know about setting up an Azure VM and hosting your Access application in it.

•  Setting up a Windows Server virtual machine in Azure
•  Access/Office variants and backend variants in the online VM
•  Remote access to the Access applications via RDP client
•  Features and limitations, costs for VM, licensing, users, etc.

George is the President of the Denver Area Access Users Group (DAAUG). He first encountered Access when using the thirty-plus floppy disk versions of Office to teach Statistics and MIS in the early 1990’s. It’s been true love ever since.
He has worked as a software developer for the past twenty-five years, half of that time at Microsoft (in just about every group other than Office).
He is the founder and president of Dawson Butte Software, working primarily on .NET applications (often with Access somewhere in the mix).  George still has a commercial site or two that is driven by an Access database sitting in the server file system.

In this session, we will do a deep dive into some of the most current questions and pain points from Access developers concerning Access help content and documentation. We’ll also cover many aspects of the broader Microsoft 365 apps and services help content work.

We will spend time answering these types of questions and many more:

•  Why is Access help fragmented across different sites?
•  What happened to the "What’s new in Access" page?
•  Where is the best place to find Access help?
•  What is the difference between in-app Access help and online Microsoft help?
•  What is context sensitive help in Access?
•  What are the most popular Access topics?
•  What are you doing to improve help and content?
•  What is the future of help content?

Jeff has worked at Microsoft for the past 16 years. He joined the Microsoft Access Services Team as a test engineer, working on the Access 2010, 2013 and 2016 releases before moving to the content organization 8 1/2 years ago.
He is now a Senior Content Experience Manager on the Magic team. His team does help search intent analysis and creates Quick Answer help content for a portfolio of Microsoft 365 applications and services.
Jeff has authored three books on Access: Microsoft Access 2007/2010/2013 Inside Out. Before joining Microsoft in 2007, he was a Microsoft Access MVP from 2004 to 2007.

 Tom van Stiphout, Kinetik IT, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Tom is the Software Development Manager of Kinetik IT. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, Kinetik IT is a full service information technology and internet services provider.
Tom has a degree from Amsterdam University and came to the US in 1991. In addition to project management, Tom enjoys creating high performing Access applications, sometimes augmented by .NET components. He is an Access MVP and a moderator on the MS Answers forum.

                Kim Young, Access Allstars, Chicago, IL, USA

Kim is an independent developer and the founder of Access Allstars in the Chicago area. Kim was the vice president of the Chicago Access User Group (CAUG) and started the SQL Server Chicago Suburban chapter of PASS. She is a Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt and is also certified in Inventory and Production control.
She has been a literacy volunteer, teaching adults to read, she is a voracious reader and collects dictionaries.

In this session, Armen will lead you on an exploration beyond database design standards and best practices. He will cover useful techniques and patterns such as:

•  Designing for flexible and powerful user permissions far beyond hierarchical levels,
   that put your users fully in control

•  Storing variable, expandable data using attribute-value pairs (and when not to use them)

•  Recording application usage telemetry events, so that you always know which parts of
   your application are being used - and which ones are being neglected

•  Storing diagnostic data, to help you with debugging those long and complex calculations
   and processes

•  Designing tables and fields to avoid hardcoding special values

Armen Stein is the founder and president of J Street Technology, a team of 15 developers, designers and support staff located near Seattle. J Street has designed and built hundreds of custom Access desktop and ASP.NET web applications since 1994, and also supports dozens of Access and web applications that were built by others.
Armen is an Access MVP since 2006, and has spoken at many user groups and conferences around the world. He also regularly guest lectures on requirements discovery and database design at a local college. His other interests include travel, photography, Kauai, backgammon, movies, supporting people with disabilities in Nepal, and driving his 1969 Ford Bronco in the sun.