1103
CHAPTER
Understanding
Windows SharePoint
Services
IN THIS CHAPTER
Getting familiar with
SharePointWorking with SharePoint ListsLooking at different types of
SharePoint sitesT
hroughout this book you’ve been reading about the many, many
changes and new features that Microsoft has added to Access 2010.
As exciting and interesting as these new capabilities are, they pale in
comparison to the ability to upsize Access applications to Windows
SharePoint Server (WSS). Each recent version of Access has demonstrated
greater and greater ability to integrate with SharePoint, but always at the data
level. Not until Access 2010 have you been able to upsize an Access applica-
tion to actually run as a SharePoint Web site.
Upsizing Access databases to SharePoint is discussed in Chapters 34 and 35.
Chapter 33 discusses sharing data with SharePoint sites, and this chapter
discusses SharePoint and explains how Access developers can use the fea-
tures provided by SharePoint.
Access and SharePoint can be tightly integrated, seamlessly sharing data
across corporate intranets and the Internet. Access data can be linked or cop-
ied from data sources located on a SharePoint site. SharePoint data linked to
Access appears as any other linked table, with the exception of somewhat
slower data access because of the latency introduced by accessing remote
data on a SharePoint server.
Although a lot of this chapter might sound as though I’m promoting SharePoint,
given the expanded role that Access 2010 is sure to play in SharePoint installa-
tions, you’ll be glad to have some background in SharePoint applications
in this book. As you’ll see in the chapters following this one, virtually any
SharePoint data is accessible to Access applications, and Access 2010 makes
it possible for the first time to migrate Access applications to the SharePoint
platform. Microsoft is clearly planning a close relationship between Access
and SharePoint for a long time to come.