Benefits of migrating Access databases to Dataverse for Microsoft Teams

There are many organizations around the world that use Microsoft Access to run important applications within their business. These are often made in-house and have evolved over time, sometimes leading to large and complex solutions.

What is Microsoft Access?

Microsoft Access is a database management system (DMS) that allows users to define a database structure, including tables, columns, and relationships, along with a user interface in the form of forms that can be configured as desired to format data.

The first version of Access was released in November 1992, making it 29 years old! The fact that it is still so widely used is certainly a testament to the flexibility and usability of the tool.

Access is supported by Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which allows users to write custom code to extend the functionality of Access.

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a business communication platform from Microsoft. Teams offers chat, video conferencing, file storage and application integration and is now used by more than 270 million monthly users, thanks in part to the pandemic.

With its simple integration framework for other applications, Microsoft Teams has become a central hub in which people are used to working.

Additionally, Microsoft Teams is built on top of an enterprise application platform that includes a data store, Dataverse, and a suite of data working tools such as Power Automate for automation and integration scenarios.

Why migrate from Access to Dataverse for Teams?

There are many benefits of migrating legacy Access databases to Microsoft Teams, not only will your application be more accessible and embedded in users’ natural workflow, but it will also be more secure due to Azure Cloud security. In addition, you can access the Power Platform functionality to extend the application.

The migration process is currently in preview, but you can read the documentation here: Migrating Microsoft Access data to Microsoft Dataverse (includes video) – Power Apps | Microsoft Docs

The migration process is handled within Access using the export function. Once this is complete, users will have the following options available:

• The ability to create applications that run on desktops, laptops, phones and tablets
• Using Power Virtual Agents to create virtual chatbot assistants with AI
• Use Power BI to perform advanced analytics and visualizations on the data

There are some caveats currently in effect for the migration. Currently, not all Access data types are supported in Dataverse.

Once your current data is in Dataverse, a world of integrated capabilities is available, so it’s a great first step in moving your current legacy system to a more modern, connected, and capable platform.

Source: infinitygroup