Access™ 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference

3.8. Integration with SharePoint

In the past, the default setting was for Access MDB database files to be blocked by SharePoint, Outlook, and most anti-virus programs because unsafe code could be shipped and trigged to run from the database. That isn't the case for the Access 2007 ACCDB file format. Since the code can be either verified as safe or disabled, it is easier to integrate Access databases more fully with SharePoint Version 3 sites and Office Outlook 2007. That also means that it is easier for anti-virus programs to inspect Access database files and verify that they are safe; therefore ACCDB files can generally be e-mailed as is. Hey, it's worked for me so far; they don't even have to be zipped to get past the screening.

Access 2007 has a full host of features that take advantage of SharePoint Services. And now that the Ribbon puts commands at your fingertips, working with SharePoint is almost as easy as point-and-click. You can quickly link your Access application to a SharePoint data source, move data to SharePoint, or link to SharePoint when a file is created. A glance at the External Data tab on the Ribbon (see Figure 3-11) shows just how simple it is to work with SharePoint. Along with Import, Export, and Collect Data commands is an entire group of commands for SharePoint Lists.

Figure 3.11. Figure 3-11

By working with SharePoint, a file can be backed up, tracked, ...