I have a SQL database and I want to link an Access table in the SQL database. Most of the online articles and videos show how to link the two databases from Access but not from SQL. I want the access table linked in SQL database so that every time the table gets updated in Access, the table in SQL server gets updated as well. Thanks!
You can do that. It's called a Linked Server and will link your Access database in SQL Server where you typically will create a view to read the Access tables to avoid the DatabaseName..TableName syntax otherwise needed.
However, it will probably not work for you because SQL Server will insist on opening the linked Access database exclusively, meaning that you cannot open it later from your Access application. And if you open it first in Access, an attempted reading from SQL Server will fail because SQL Server cannot get exclusive access.
You may argue, that a shared access should be possible, and connection parameters indicate this, but I haven't found a way to achieve this.
So, as others have mentioned, you may have turn this upside/down, and use, say, ODBC to link the SQL Server tables in your Access application, and then let this take care of the maintenance of the SQL Server tables.
It must be like this (SQL SERVER) => (MS Access)
and yes you are correct, it's called linked tabled in Ms Access. In order to link a table from another database, you must have
Correct drivers installed. (ODBC)
Know the login details of your SQL server and have sufficient permission in SQL server
Go to MS Access -> External data -> ODBC Databse -> link to the data source by creating a linked table ->
Now you can select a DSN file where your sql server credentials are saved, or you can make "new" and follow the steps to get connected to the SQL server.
Once connected, you will be presented with a list of all the tables from SQL server. Select the table you want to link and finish the wizard.
You now have SQL table connected in MS Access and can input data directly.
Related
I'm new to SQL Server and trying to automatically update tables in SQL Server from tables in MS Access.
I have an Access database of metadata that must be kept updated for sending records to other groups. I also have a database in SQL Server which also has these same metadata tables. Currently these tables in the SQL Server database get updated manually by exporting the Access tables as Excel files, and then importing them into the SQL Server tables.
It's not the most efficient process and could lead to errors in the SQL Server database if someone forgets to check that they are using the most recent data from Access. So I would like to integrate some of the tables from Access to my database in SQL Server. Ideally I would like for the tables in my SQL Server database to be updated whenever Access is updated or at least update the tables automatically in the SQL Server database when I open it.
Would replicating the Access tables be the best? I am using SQL Server 2014 Developer so I think I have this capability. From my understanding, mirroring is for an entire database not just pieces of it. However, I do not want to be able to alter the metadata from SQL Server and have it reflected in Access. I cannot tell if reflecting the tables would do this...?
I also looked at this post about writing multiple insert statements but was confused (What is the best way to auto-generate INSERT statements for a SQL Server table?). Someone else suggested importing all the data into SQL Server and then using an ODBC driver to connect the two, but I'm also not sure how this would update the database in SQL Server anytime Access is updated.
If you have any suggestion and a link to easy to follow tutorial I would really appreciate it!
Thanks
In Access, go to 'External Data', ODBC Database, and connect to the SQL Server database directly - make sure you select 'Link to the data source by creating a linked table' on the first page of the wizard. Now, this linked table is available in Access, but is actually the SQL Server table.
Get rid of the local Access tables, using the new linked tables in their place in whatever queries, forms, reports, etc that you have in Access.
Now, any changes to the tables you see in this Access db ARE changes to the SQL Server database.
I'm trying to save the values of several columns of one table to another table on a different server. I am using SQL Server. I would like to do this without running external programs that query from this database and insert the results into the new database. Is there any way to do this from within the SQL Server Management Studio?
This is a recurring event that occurs every hour. I have tried scheduling maintenance tasks that execute custom T-SQL scripts but I'm having trouble getting the connection to the remote server.
Any help would be appreciated.
If you can set up the remote server as a linked server you should be able to configure the SQL Server Agent to execute jobs that contain queries that access tables on both the local and linked server. Remember that you might have to configure the access rights for the account used to run SQL Server Agent so that it has permissions to read/write tables on both servers.
This practice might not be without issues though as this article discusses.
You can use a 4 part name like;
INSERT [InstanceName].[DatabaseName].[SchemaName].[TableName]
SELECT * FROM [SourceInstanceName].[SourceDatabaseName].[SourceSchemaName].[SourceTableName]
But first you will have to set the remote server as a linked server as so;
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa560998.aspx
I have an access 2003 database that holds all of my business data. This access database gets updated every few hours during the day.
We're currently writing a website that will need to use the data from the access database. This website (for the time being) will have only read only capabilities. Meaning there will only need to be one way transfer of data (Access -> SQL).
I'm imaging there's a way to perform this data migration from access to SQL server programatically. Does anyone have any links to something I can read about?
If this practice sounds odd, and you'd like to suggest another way to do this (or a situation where data can go both ways (Access -> SQL, SQL -> Access), that's perfectly fine.
The company is going to continue using Access 2003 for their business functionality. There's no way around that. But I'd like to build the (readonly) website on top of SQL Server.
The strategy you outlined can be very challenging. You could use INSERT queries to copy new Access rows to SQL Server, as described in another answer.
However, if you have changes to existing Access rows, and you also want those changes propagated to SQL Server, it won't be so simple. And it will be more complicated still if you want deleted Access rows deleted from SQL Server, too.
It seems more reasonable to me to use a different approach. Migrate the data to SQL Server once. Then replace the tables in your Access database with ODBC links to the SQL Server tables. Thereafter, changes to the data from within your Access application will not require a separate synchronization step ... they will already be in SQL Server. And you won't need to write any code to synchronize them.
If your concern is that the connections between the web server and SQL Server be read-only, just set them up that way. You can still independently allow read-write permissions for your Access application.
To do the initial data migration and set the SQL Server automatically, I would use the SQL Server Migration Assistant. The only thing you should definitely change that I can think of would be to turn off the Identity property on any columns that have it - to be explained below (MS Access calls Identity autonumber). Once you have your tables loaded, you can set up a dsnless connection to the database (and tables) you just created.
I haven't used the method just linked, but I believe it allows you to use SQL Server authentication to connect to the db. The benefit of using this method is you can easily change which SQL Server instance and/or database your are connecting to for development and testing.
There might be a better, automated way, but you can create several insert queries doing left joins from the primary key of the Access table to the SQL Server table, and putting a WHERE clause that specifies the SQL Server PrimaryKey must be null. This is why you need to turn off the Identity property in the SQL Server tables, so that you can insert the new data.
Finally, put the name of each query in one function, then run the function periodically.
I have used Microsoft's free SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) to migrate Access to SQL Server. The tool is very simple to use. The only problem I have encountered with the tool was overloaded data types when migrating. What I mean by this is a small string will get converted to a NVARCHAR(MAX) in some instances. Otherwise, the tool is very handy and can be reused after setting up a 'profile'.
I am attempting to keep a table in Sql server updated from an access table. Any time a change is made in the access table I would like that change reflected in the sql server table. The two tables can be identical. I have created an ODBC connection from access to sql server and can export the table to sql server; I just don’t know what must be done to keep that table updated. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Should this be implemented from within Access or within sql server?
Can you just add the SQL Server table to the Access database as a linked table? (Useful article on how to add linked tables)? That way users (let's hope there's not many!) of the Access database are in effect editing the SQL Server table directly.
If this isn't desirable then how about creating another table in the SQL Server database, and adding this to the Access database as a linked table. Then, add a trigger so that when an insert/update/delete is made to this table the same operation is done on your main table.
I think setting up a Linked Server in SQL Server could be easier to implement than an automatic export of data from Access.
According to the MSDN page,
Many types OLE DB data sources can be configured as linked servers, including Microsoft Access and Excel.
Server-on-SQL-2005-Server/
Access has no "event" that occurs when a row is updated/inserted/deleted that I know of. as JeffO points out data macros that could do what you want.
You could also periodically synch them. There are several techniques to periodically do the synch task (SQL Server Agent, Windows Service, Windows Scheduler, a timer in an application etc.), but still have to deal with all the problems that exist with synchronization if both tables can be modified, the worst being data conflict resolution. There is no easy solution for that.
Perhaps if you explained the problem you have that you are solving with synching data in SQL server and Access someone might be able to point you in the direction of a solution that doesn't have these problems.
I have some Access tables with many number of fields. I have migrated each access table to 6 or 7 sql server tables. I am using sql server 2008. Now I want to use Access as the front end so that I can enter the data in access but it will be stored in sql server. I know that I have to make a ODBC connection. But I am not sure of how to create a access form to use it as a front-end. I am sorry if it's a basic question...
You will probably want to start with an empty Access database (since the table structures and any existing forms and reports will not match what you created in SQL server).
First step is to establish an ODBC connection to your SQL Server database. Then you will "link" the tables in SQL Server to your Access database.
Now, you have an Access database with all the tables that you linked from SQL Server. Those tables still "live" in SQL Server and when you edit them in Access the data will be stored in SQL Server.
You can then build Access forms and reports using these tables just as if the tables were native to Access.
The most versatile way is to use ODBC links to your SQL Server tables and views. That approach allows you the flexibility to link to other ODBC data sources, tables in other Jet/ACE database files, create Jet/ACE tables locally in your database, link to Excel spreadsheets, and so forth. You can incorporate a broad range of data sources.
If you choose ADP, you will be limited to OLE DB connection to a single SQL Server instance. And you will be essentially locked in to SQL Server. You would not be able to switch the application to a different client-server database without a major re-development effort.
Regarding deployment overhead with ODBC, although you may find it convenient to use a DSN during development, you should convert your ODBC links to DSN-less connections before deployment. That way your user's won't each require the DSN. See Doug Steele's page: Using DSN-Less Connections
Well you can create an ODBC connection. You can also create an ADODB connection as well. If your objective is to update or modify a SQL database, both connections will do the trick.
Now, I guess you have to get familiar with the corresponding objects. These should be tables, queries, commands, etc .., that will allow you, for example, to build recordsets out of SQL queries ... Once you are clear with that, you can, for example, assign a recordset to a form through the Set myForm.recordset = myRecordset.open ... method.