Autumn 2024 Conference
Conference kindly sponsored by:
J Street Technology is a database application development shop offering requirements assessment, web and Access application development and support, and system integration services to customers across North America.
Bill Bigwood helps a variety of a different clients (industries and sizes) in the UK using Microsoft Technologies to build new systems and troubleshoot existing systems mainly using MS Access and SQL Server but also using Word, Excel, Outlook VBA and Visual Basic.Net.
Agenda
09.15 – 09.45
Registration, Tea/Coffee & Biscuits
09.45 – 10.00
Introduction – by Rod Gordon, Co-Chairman of the Access User Group
10.00 – 10.40
Access Development Case Study
presented by Steve Girling
Access to Xero Integration beginners guide
Steve will provide a overview of how Blackmore have switched from Sage to Xero as there preferred accounts package and the steps involved in integrating a link between there bespoke Access database into Xero to create Invoices using VBA. Guides to the documentation on Xero’s Authorisation Tool and ODBC driver alternatives will be offered with the pitfalls discovered.
Yet another list box replacement.
Whilst the list box is a great quick way to enable you to present a grid type of data layout – It has always been a pain to add clickable sorting and any type of formatting. Steve will demo an active X replacement that will allow sorting, grouping, conditional formatting of individual cells and much more as a viable alternative. With examples of how this works in a case study of an existing application to show how it can greatly aid user interfaces
10.40 – 11.30
How, Why and When To Use Class Modules in the Real World
presented by Anders Ebro, aka The Smiley Coder
Anders will provide an introductory session on class modules – and will then explain how to use them in real world scenarios.
How do you decide whether to put it in a bunch of procs in a standard module, or to create a class module? What should guide that decision? Sure, a class module can raise events, but beyond that, what are the benefits? Why use properties, rather than public variables in a standard module? Anders will give real examples of when class modules have been used and why he did it that way.
11.30 – 11.50
Break for Tea/Coffee
11.50 – 12.50
twinBasic – Past, Present, and Future
presented by Mike Wolfe
Join Mike as he explains the modern programming language twinBASIC that maintains compatibility with VBA. He will explain why it’s of considerable significance to our community and how it could change the Access developer’s working life. He goes through the past, present and (most importantly!) future of this new product.
- Past: What is twinBASIC?
- A brief introduction
- Key features compared to VBA
- Present: How can it be used today?
- Developing custom components
- Extending existing applications
- Replacing legacy scripts
- Future: What lies ahead for developers?
- Potential impact on VBA
- Implications for Access development
12.50 – 13.00
A word from our sponsors!
13.00 – 13.50
Lunch
13.50 – 14.30
Using Microsoft Graph API’s to Communicate with Microsoft 365 in VBA (or how we might need to change the way Access sends emails and do many other things besides)
Presented by Peter Bryant
With the advent of New Outlook, Microsoft are threatening a fundamental tool that many of us will have used – VBA control of the Outlook Object to send emails. Whilst the guillotine may not finish its descent for some years, there’s an increasing risk that you or your client may accidentally break a really important feature of your app.
Graph APIs within 365 are tightly secured methods for applications to talk to the 365 architecture and data. This is the story of my continuing mission to use APIs to change data (see my JSON and XML talks).
Leveraging the recent work done by Maria Barnes to get VBA executing Graph APIs, I will demonstrate how you can a) send an email in Access VBA without Outlook installed and b) another Office 365 function TBC.
As I see it, the critical benefit of cracking this challenge is that as so much of 365 is exposed by the Graph API – you should be able to rinse and repeat the method to do all sorts of things. Given two functions will be shown here, you can see from this webpage how so much more will be possible: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/overview
14.30 – 14.55
Break for Tea/Coffee
14.55 – 15.40
Presentation from the Microsoft Access Desktop Engineering Team
Dale Rector (Principle Engineering Manager) and Linda Lu Cannon (Senior Product Manager) will introduce the Microsoft team; and stay on for the panel session. We will then be introduced to following team members who will each have a topic to present:
Courtney Owen (Senior Engineer) speaking on Charting Improvements;
Sachin Arunkumar, (Software Engineer II) speaking on SQL Editor Improvements;
Shane Groff (Senior Engineer) speaking on Large Monitor support and upcoming features.
15.40 – 16.35
Panel Session: The Future of Access
Mike Wolfe, the Access team, Anders Ebro, and Steve Girling will take part in a panel session to discuss the future of Microsoft Access, chaired by Rod Gordon.
Attendees are encouraged to ask questions on a wide range of subjects – and also join the discussion by giving their point of view.
16:35 – 16:45
Closing by Rod Gordon
SPEAKER PROFILES
Mike Wolfe, MVP
Based in the USA, Mike Wolfe is one of the leading Access experts in the world, including the following:
– He is one of the World Top 20 contributors for the Microsoft Access tag on Stack Overflow
– He runs https://nolongerset.com – the internet’s top source for all things Access and VBA
– Mike is one of only 20 Access MVPs worldwide: https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/PublicProfile/5004608?fullName=Mike%20Wolfe
– And for his day job Mike is President (and Developer!) at Grandjean & Braverman, Inc., a custom software development company in Pennsylvania, specialising in Microsoft Access with SQL Server development https://grandjean.net/
Anders Ebro
Anders Ebro, known online as The Smiley Coder, is a Danish software architect with a passion for application and software development. He is recognised as being one of the world’s leading speakers on Microsoft Access.
With a strong background in these fields, he has become a prominent figure in the tech community, sharing insights through tutorials, blogs, and conference presentations. Anders is known for his expertise in creating both innovative and intuitive solutions to complex problems. His work emphasizes clarity, usability, and the power of well-crafted visualizations. Beyond his technical skills, Anders is appreciated for his approachable teaching style and commitment to helping others learn. Through his online presence, he continues to inspire and educate a global audience of tech enthusiasts.
Steve Girling, steve.girling@blackmoreuk.com
Steve is the IT software development manager for Blackmore UK who are one of the country’s leading data destruction and secure IT disposal companies. Blackmore have been in business for almost 30 years and have a Government approved data sanitisation process and are one of only a handful of U.K. IT Asset Disposal companies to hold the ADISA Certification achieving their highest level of certification to Distinction, with a DIAL 3 Rating.
Steve has been developing bespoke Access FE / SQL Server BE solutions to a wide range of clients for over 25 years and has a passion for clean interface design. In what seems a different life, Steve previously worked for an advertising directory business and prior to that a software house developing case management solutions for solicitors. Based in Wiltshire, Steve is a huge football fan and follows Leeds Utd around the country where possible as well as being a top amateur snooker player.
Peter Bryant, pbryant@corylus-business.co.uk
Peter has run his own consultancy since 2004 and (after a fashion) specialises in not specialising; he’s worked in almost every sector ranging from automotive to hi-fi, from reseller to print, and financial services to charity. He has used Microsoft Access since the early beta program over three (!) decades ago and his projects are now more about data analysis, function and business problem solving rather than the most amazing code writing. Projects are nearly always lengthy prototyping/agile projects where the client starts out quite unsure of their expected final outcome. As well as Access/SQL development he gets involved in general IT Management for SME’s as well as project management for resellers and enterprise.
Rod Gordon of Gordon Associates www.gordonassociates.co.uk
Rod runs a software business with twenty staff who provide business management systems for over 25 exam boards such as Royal Academy of Dance, Chartered Institute of Taxation, Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply. The web-based system written in .NET/SQL (www.parnassusonline.com) supports tens of thousands of users across over 75 countries processing millions of records.