Access 2007: The Missing Manual

Chapter 18. Sharing a Database with Multiple Users

Now that you’ve created the perfect database, you’d probably like to share it with friends and colleagues. In the hands of a single person, Access is a top-notch tool for managing information. But when you share the love with a group of people, it becomes an even better way to work together.

Sharing databases is particularly important if your database plays a behind-the-scenes role in an organization. Imagine you create a database that tracks company projects and their due dates. (Often, a database like this starts out as a timesaving convenience in the hands of an Access fan with a little too much free time.) Before long, other departments want in so they can keep track of their own projects. And the possibilities don’t stop there; if you share the database with a wide enough audience, you can link together all sorts of related tasks. Employees can log the hours they work on each project. Product testers can submit outstanding issues that affect a project. Team leaders can identify time-taxing projects, head honchos can calculate salary bonuses, and the CEO can get a bird’s eye view of all the work that’s taking place in the company. Before long, it becomes difficult to imagine life without your Access database.

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to share your database with a small team. You’ll consider the potential pitfalls, and you’ll learn what you need to do to keep everything running smoothly.

Opening Up Your ...