The second Access DevCon Vienna took place on April 7+8, 2018. It included 11 presentations by experienced developers from Europe and the USA. We had 60 attendees from 13 countries.
 

Picture gallery

A keynote about the current state of the product and the community with a lot of information and links, funny statements and examples.

•  Exclusive video by the Microsoft Access Team about the latest news in the product
•  What has happened in the Access world since DevCon 1
•  Evaluation of new features, product policy, websites etc.
•  What to expect from Access 2019 and what not at all

You've certainly heard of telemetry services for websites like google Analytics and maybe for mobile apps. Now, with VBATelemetry there is an easy-to-use interface tool for real applications ;-) that enables our Access projects to use Microsoft's popular telemetry service Azure Application Insights.

•  Set up Application Insights and VBATelemetry
•  How to use the tool in your Access/Excel/Word...VBA projects
•  Track user actions, errors and other metrics in (almost) real time, worldwide
•  Who used which form/report/function, which error happened when, how long lasted this and that...
•  Get the graphics, statistics and user/location/system etc. info in Azure

A session about essentially all the problems your company may experience with the current Microsoft way to handle versions, builds, updates, bugs, regressions, incompatibilities...

•  Keeping track of the different versions and builds of Microsoft Access: FMS big list
     - Examples of Access builds and Windows updates that caused problems in Access applications
     - Dealing with continual updates from Office365
•  What versions of Access can be installed on the same machine?
     - Access 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016
     - Office365 installations versus installations from disk
     - Retail versus Runtime
•  How to create development environments and make builds for users running different versions
    of Access and Windows.
     - Using Hyper-V or VMWare virtual machines for development and builds
     - Making sure builds are based on the lowest common platform
•  Supporting 32+64-bit VBA in the same module but using different machines to create
    ACCDE/MDE files
•  Simplifying the deployment of your Access database updates to each user’s desktop
•  Professional installation program (InstallShield) to install our program and dependencies
     like DLLs and OCX files, registry settings, Administrator rights, etc.
•  Using the Access Database Engine (ACE) installation program with 32 and 64-bit conflicts
•  Testing on different environments

Luke founded FMS in 1986. He is the primary author of many FMS tools including Total Access Analyzer/Detective/Emailer/Statistics. He has also personally provided consulting services to a wide range of clients.
Luke is a Microsoft Access MVP. He is a graduate of Harvard University with a Bachelor degree in Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a Master in Physical Oceanography.

Two sensational, brand new tools for Access that will be available as products around the event:

Web Replicator
Access and the usual mySQL/PHP website/webform get married here! Wait, let's call it a long-distance relationship with a secure contract:   Publish and collect data in realtime to/from the web using a few common and particular ingredients like FTP, web service, one-time-tokens and a shared secret.

•  Architectural and technical overview
•  Insights to the web service, authentication and security concepts
•  Live example how to set up the service, drag&drop the data to replicate
      between the webserver, a local SQL Server and/or any Access database

Database/Backend Explorer
SSMS or some mySQL admin tools are great but the Navigation Pane is a mess that can't handle Access backends at all. Yet if you have linked tables in Access you don't always want to open heavy tools for your backend and they are less than ideal for what you usually want to see or do in this context.
Now you can do it from inside your Access frontend:

•  Watch your backend tables (SQL Server, Access...) and relevant properties using a treeview
•  View the data in the backend tables without having to link them
•  Create or delete links by drag&drop or a few mouse clicks
•  Copy objects over from one database to another
•  ... use this unique first opportunity to tell the author your dreams of what else to include

After Thomas made his master in computer science at the Technical University of Berlin he has focused on UI and databases. So he became an Access developer with the first version in 1992. He uses Access not only as RAD tool for app development, but also as basis for a next generation framework where apps are generated from or driven by meta data.

He is the author of the picoware Treeview for Access.

Using a remote backend database for distributed Access projects can be a very powerful setup, allowing you to provide Access applications that can be used from almost anywhere. However, working with such a setup can be a difficult task when it comes to performance. Whether it’s SQL Server, SQL Azure, MySQL or any other relational database in the cloud, the core concepts are the same.
This presentation will cover the topic in detail, from the two core bottlenecks and how to mitigate them, insights on how to classify and organize your data to best optimize your application operations, as well as numerous tips, tricks and tools to help you build high performance Access applications.

•  Understanding how Wide Area Networks and ODBC drivers work in the context of your data requests
•  How to predict a 200 millisecond query vs a 200 minute query
•  Understanding your application’s data and how to best deal with the common patterns
•  Working with data caches and temporary data
•  Analyzing your remote data request performance
•  Tips and tricks for how to squeeze performance down to the last drop

Jack is the founder and CEO of Dymeng Services, a software development company working with Line of Business and B2B SaaS solutions. He routinely works with Access, SQL Server and ASP.NET MVC delivering solutions, utilizing both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services as typical infrastructures.
An Access MVP 2012-2016, Jack has also written numerous technical articles and whitepapers.

SVG is an image format for two-dimensional graphics. The images and their behaviors are defined in XML text files. So they can be created with any text editor or scripted by VBA. Let's say it can be used to build charts but in the broadest sense, even with support for interactivity and animation.

Alexandru started to use Access at his first job where he had to use a template to create mdb files containing land and building registration data. He has been using Access ever since, both as an end user and developer.
He recently joined Microsoft as a Support Engineer for Power BI, PowerApps and Flow. They are encouraged to build automation tools to make their lives easier. So he is currently working on an Access application to help his team process the support requests faster.

Flow and PowerApps are modern MS technologies for online/mobile purposes. This session wants to instigate ideas how to team them with the RAD power of good old Access and this way add flexibility and robustness, e.g. if there's no Internet, a request would go into a queue until Internet is back on.
For instance, more and more self-serviced apartments (Airbnb etc.) need a room-service system. A good system would be an Access application on a tablet in the apartment that allows the guest to ask for stuff; like pressing a button to ask for toilet paper which would trigger an approval action in Flow but also post to an admin PowerApps application on the owner's phone. So he would be able to respond from his phone via PowerApps.

•  How to design a Flow to approve sth
•  How to send a POST request using WinHTTP from Access to trigger a Flow
•  How to design a simple PowerApps application to receive information via Flow
•  How to trigger a Flow from PowerApps

Congratulations! You’re starting a new custom development project. But the way a project starts is a good predictor of how it will finish. To make everything proceed smoothly and complete successfully, it’s important to develop a great project plan. You must understand and document your customer’s needs, project scope, and perhaps most importantly, the cost estimates!
Armen will discuss how J Street plans Access and web projects from hundreds of hours to thousands, and he’ll leave you with samples and tools that you can use.

•  Conversations with the customer
•  Components of the project plan
•  Choosing the right architecture
•  Estimating Access and web projects
•  Database design as a scope indicator
•  How Agile should I be?

Armen is the founder and president of J Street Technology, a Microsoft Partner located near Seattle.  J Street is a team of developers with expertise in building custom Access desktop and ASP.NET web applications.  He is an MCP, Access MVP and has spoken at many conferences and user groups around the world.
His other interests include travel, photography, Kauai, backgammon, movies and driving his 1969 Ford Bronco in the sun.

Juan shows a couple of Access applications his company has developed for different clients over the last years.

•  The problem/initial position/requirements
•  Essential parts of the solution
•  Technical and organizational highlights
•  The most interesting/unusual codes, tools, tips and tricks
•  Planning for large projects and unusual situations
•  Rolling out new versions for the first time

After this presentation you will have a better understanding of how to leverage Access in more complex situations.

Juan is the President of IT Impact Inc. and a Microsoft Access MVP for the last six years.

His blog is focused on Access+SQL Server and he is the founder of AccessUserGroups.org.

When he’s not working or blogging, Juan enjoys traveling around the world. You can reach him at https://accessexperts.com/contact/

The Windows API is like a reliable, old car. It's fairly basic but it's just getting its jobs done in an almost miraculous way for more than 20 years.
Now, a bit of maintenance is due to make it run on new 64bit roads. Let’s use this opportunity to take it apart. We'll give its moving parts the servicing it needs to be roadworthy for the next 20 years. Here's our servicing checklist:

•  Access 64bit vs. 32bit
•  How to use the Windows API in VBA
•  Common data types
•  Tools and resources
•  VBA7 extensions for 64bit
•  Preparing API calls for 64bit

Philipp is working with Access for almost 20 years now. He runs his small consultancy for bespoke software and technical counselling for almost as long. Amongst other community contributions, he was awarded Microsoft MVP for his website about Access and VBA. He is the creator of Ivercy, a source code control add-in for Access, and has more recently acquired a taste for recording Access + VBA related videos.