Many organizations grapple over the decision about which edition of
Microsoft Office to license. Typically the two leading contenders are
the Standard and Professional Editions of Microsoft Office. The single
difference? Microsoft Access. Yet a large majority of your staff will
never need the full design and programming capability of Microsoft Access.
Rather, they simply need to enter and search for data stored in a desktop
database. Only a few employees may need the ability to design and build
Access databases for other users. Save large amounts of money by reducing
or eliminating unnecessary Microsoft Access licenses in your organization.
HOW TO MINIMIZE LICENSE COSTS
Few companies know that Microsoft provides a free runtime version of Microsoft
Access which can be installed on any Windows desktop, and run any Microsoft
Access database application. By providing some users with only the runtime
version of Microsoft Access, your organization can save a significant
amount of money.
$499 (Professional Edition license) - $399 (Standard Edition license)
= Savings per User
Savings per User * (Total Access licenses
� Access developers) = Total Savings
For example, if you have 100 Access licenses and 5 Access developers,
you can eliminate 95 licenses for a total savings of $9,500. An even
larger organization of 5,000 employees can potentially save $400,000
or more!
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
There are several major considerations when choosing to migrate some
users to the runtime version of Access, each of which can be easily
overcome by using
UI Builder� for Microsoft Access to deploy your databases.
Consideration |
UI Builder Solution |
Users only have visibility to the forms, reports, and
queries you present to them. They are only able to modify
data stored in the database. This means users need a strong
menu interface that offers all the functionality necessary
for them to carry out their work. |
UI Builder�s intuitive menu interface can be easily
configured to display the forms, reports, and queries your
users need. Each menu and submenu button can carry out more
than 25 different commands. Moreover, you can change the
menu commands, display layouts, and color schemes even when in Access runtime mode. |
Macro and Visual Basic coding must have solid error
handling to prevent the Access runtime version from shutting
down. The Access runtime version will close on unhandled
errors. |
The features in UI Builder is pre-packaged
and fully tested, which means you only have to worry about
testing the small number of macros or functions you create
yourself. |
Advanced troubleshooting tools
are highly important to identify the source of problems
in an Access runtime database. |
UI Builder�s event logging and
alerts help you isolate potential causes for error in your
database, even if you are far away from the user�s PC. Rather
than attempt to reproduce their setup and debug with a full
version of Access on their machine, you can view the event
log to identify where the application is encountering difficulty.
|
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS
Employing runtime versions of Access in your business can have some
additional benefits that are important to evaluate: Control user
access to objects By using the runtime version of Access, your users
will not have the ability to open the Microsoft Access database
window, or gain access to forms, queries, reports, and other objects
you may not want them to open, delete, or modify. Limit the ability
to extract data In cases where you are not eager to have data readily
extracted from your Access database into an Excel file or other
output that might get into the wrong hands, the runtime version
can help limit a user�s ability to do so. Because the Import/Export
capability is not included I the runtime version, the user would
need to print numerous pages of data, or find ways to access your
database via ODBC.
CONCLUSION
Depending on your organization�s size, you can save literally thousands
of dollars in unneeded Microsoft Access licenses, while still enabling
employees to benefit from the efficiency gains many Access databases
offer. When evaluating how much you can save, and the steps needed
to migrate users to the runtime version of Access, leveraging off-the-shelf
tools like UI Builder for Access can reduce your time to savings,
and ensure your runtime database solutions are reliable and easy
to manage.
RESOURCES