M/S Access

[Phil Gillenwater]

I have recently taken a new sales job and want to develop a database for all of our company salesmen. I have been an Alpha user since it was only a DOS program. I even have the Runtime license and I have developed databases for other customers in the past. I know it and am comfortable with it. My sales manager has given the go ahead to develop the database, but wants it done in Access, which I also have but do not use. He wants Access because he wants to standardize the entire sales force with Office 2000. Can anyone help me build my case for using Alpha 5? Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Phil

[Bill Warner]

RE: M/S Access

Well, this will probably be one of MANY responses you will get. The first is a message from Geoff Hollander that I copied from this message board:

Mike,

I have been an enthusiastic and happy Alpha Four/Alpha Five user for many years. I also use Access 2000 (note that this version is far superior, in my opinion, to previous versions).

I'm also on the Infoworld Review Board ans have reviewed these products for this pub more than once and over several versions.

Without all the hoopla and MS-bashing (their products do make sense and are very well constructed for the most part), the concise answer is this: choose the tool to fit the job.

Acccess 2000 is the best choice if you are on a network and need to connect to SQL Server 7, want universality in the finished product or are working extensively in concert with other MS Office apps; like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. There is at least fifty times the documentation, utilities, shareware, information and third party tools for VBA (Access's Xbasic) available for Access 2000, MS Office Developer and VBA than for Alpha Five. Access 2000's interface is much more navigable and intuitive that Alpha Five's while VBA tools and add-on features make it easy environment in which to write code.

Alpha Five is faster, leaner, more effecient, and is an easier, desktop (Infoworld's term) DBMS that's more condusive performing sophisticated database operations. If you want to accomplish anything more that the simplest tasks in Access, you will have to program. While there is a well developed macro feature in Access, Alpha Five offers the ablity to accomplish a lot more, in less time and with significanly greater power.

Alpha Five also brings many features to the table that Access, Paradox, FoxPro and (Gagggghhh) FileMaker Pro haven't even dreamed of yet. Some examples (although they were very well descrbed in another answer to your message) are: posting, field rules, easily editing data within a queried browse, relating tables and performing operations using either fields, expressions; or both (Access cannont do this in a single operation).

If your cousin is on a large enterprise network where she either has to connect with a backend database (i.e. SQL Server 7) or where Office applications and their integration is required, or what she's trying to accomplish is fairly simple, then Access 2000 is a reasonable choice. If speed (I have to typically charge clients more time to do the same things in Access as Alpha Five because it runs so much slower -- bow wow), small file footprint, shorter development time and getting directly to the project's point are key, then I think Alpha Five would be the best choice. It's almost always mine.

Hope this helps a bit.>>

Also, here's a comparison that I gleened from several posts, including major contributions from Cal Locklin:

Field Rule Comparison -- Alpha Five vs. Access

Field rules in Alpha Five are the best in the industry. The proper use of field rules is important to ensure correct data entry. Inadequate attention to field rules can result in inconsistant and, worst of all, inaccurate data entry. Good field rule definitions will help make sure that only numbers in a realistic range are entered, part numbers will always be entered the same way (spaces, dashes, capitalization, will be correct), customer names and addresses will be correct, etc. Inadequate field rules can result in bad data but they can also result in bad reports and queries � example: if a part number is sometimes entered as ABC-1230, sometimes as ABC 1230, and sometimes as ABC-123O (letter "O" instead of numeral zero), any lookups or sorting will be incorrect.

The following information shows the power of Alpha Five field rules.

Formats:
Access: 6 numbers formats (decimals, commas, $, %) are available when defining the field / database structure.

No text formatting is available.

2 date and 5 time formats are available.

Alpha 5: 43 number formats are available in the individual forms and reports. Numbers are formatted in the database structure only for maximum length and maximum number of decimals. Putting the format in the individual forms and reports allows the user to easily change the format to fit the current needs. For example, it is often easier to read a column of numbers without leading dollar signs and only put the dollar sign on the total.

6 case conversion formats for text conversion exist: Upper Case, Lower Case, Lower Case except First Letter, Lower Case except First Letter of Each Word, First Letter U/C while others not changed, First Letter of Each Word U/C while others not changed. Also, an Exceptions Dictionary exists for unusual capitalization such as McDonald or 'Made in USA' where USA is all capitalized. New words can be added to the exceptions dictionary by the user.

26 date formats are available in the individual forms and reports. Again, this allows the versatility to change the format depending on the current use.

There is no time format. Time formatting must be done by the user as a character field mask & template - (hh:mm:ss, AM/PM, etc.)

Number Types:
Access: 6 number types are available: Byte (0-255), Integer (-32,768 to 32,767), Long Integer (�2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647), Single (real numbers with 7 digit precision), Double (real numbers with 15 digit precision), and Replication ID (globally unique identifier for replication).

Alpha 5: Only one type is available. Any real number can be stored with up to 19 characters including a decimal point and a negative sign. Examples: 12 digits to the left of the decimal and 6 to the right - or - 5 digits to the left of the decimal and 13 to the right - or - 3 digits to the left of the decimal and none to the right. The maximum number of decimals is 14.

Masks:
Access: There are 10 predefined masks for text fields, 2 date masks, and 3 time masks.

Other text and date/time masks can be created by the user.

Alpha 5: There are 5 predefined masks for text fields. There are no masks for defining date fields because this is handled by the 26 format options on each form.

Other text masks can be created by the user.

Conditional masks are available. For example: If the country is Canada, the postal code should look like 5N5 B7B (or is it N5N 8B7 � I could use a good field rule here.) But, if the country is USA, the postal code should be 55555-1234. No other database has this 'conditional mask and template' option.

Fixed mask characters can be optionally stored in the database. Example: phone numbers can be shown as 1 (800) 555-4567 but only 18005554567 can be stored in the table. (at the user's option) This example saves 5 characters of 'data' for each record.

Captions:
Both databases allow the user to define a field 'caption' or 'default descriptive name'.

Default Values:
Access: The user can define a simple default value using any of the available functions.

Alpha 5: There are 3 basic default methods available: simple default, conditional default, and previous value.

The 'simple' default is similar to the Access simple default. For the 'conditional' default, the user defines a condition for which he wants each default to be true. For example: If warehouse = "A" then contact = "Joe" -- and � If warehouse = "B" then contact = "Sue".

The 'previous value' is just like it sounds. It uses the value entered in the last record.

Validation Rules:
Access: The user can define 1 validation rule using any of the available functions.

Fields can be defined as "Required = Yes/No" .

Alpha 5: The user can define his own validation rules (at least 10 available, maybe more) using any of the available functions. Each rule is given its own unique warning message defined by the user.

There are 3 double entry modes: None, Required, and Conditionally Required.

There are 3 uniqueness requirements: None, Unique, and Value of expression must be unique.

Cross-file validation is available: Simple or Advanced. In simple cross-file validation, you chose 'must exist' or 'must not exist' in a particular field of a particular table. In advanced mode, you can chose any field in multiple tables depending on the results of a 'test' expression. Using a variation of the example in Default Values: If warehouse = "A", part number must exist in the table named "WarehouseA" �

Fields can be defined as "Required = Yes/No/Conditional"


Lookup Rules:
Access: Lookup by Table, Value List, or Field List.

Multiple columns can be 'shown' but only one is visible at any given time. Only the field currently being edited can be filled.

Alpha 5: Lookup by Simple List, Cascading List, Table, Conditional Table, or Previous Values.

Cascading List example: The first screen could have "Warehouse A", "Warehouse B", and "Warehouse C". Then a second screen could appear with different worker's names for each warehouse.

Multiple columns can be shown and all will be visible at the same time. Multiple fields can be filled with one lookup � ie, look up a customer number with only the customer number and name visible but fill in the customer number, contact name, phone number, and country with one selection.

NOTE: If the customer is not in the lookup table, they can be added 'on the fly' directly from the lookup table. It is not necessary to cancel the current record, switch to the 'customer' table to add the new customer, then return to the creation of the new record. Similarly, changes can be made 'on the fly' if, for example, the customer name is spelled incorrectly.

The drop-down lookup lists, including table lookups, can be defined to "Do not pop-up on entry", "Pop-up on entry", or "Pop-up conditionally". In addition, a field with a pop-up list can be defined to "Allow any value", "Force closest match", "Pop-up on mis-match", or "Allow any/fill only on pop-up".


Indexing:
Access: Indexing can be done from the field description area. A field can be defined as 'indexed with duplicates shown' or 'indexed without duplicates shown'.

Alpha 5: Indexing must be done from the "Index" button but more complicated indexes are available. The choice of with or without duplicates is also available. In addition, they can be either ascending or descending order and a filter can be included to limit the specific records. Example: Sort descending on worker name but filter out everything except warehouse "A".

Additional Field Rules:
Access: None

Alpha 5: A 'field description' can be added so that cryptic field names can be understood when modifications are required months after the database is completed and/or a new programmer is hired.

Fields can be defined so that the cursor 'auto advances' to the next field once the current field is filled.

A 'skip' expression can be defined to cause the cursor to skip over a field. For example: if there is no phone number, skip the 'extension' field.

The cursor position can be at the end of selected text (std. default in most programs) or it can be positioned at the end of UNselected text so that additional characters can be added to a default value. Examples: "Text|" or "Text|"

Speed typing is available for commonly used words and phrases.

Exceptions Dictionary available for unusual capitalizations. (see Formats above)

Posting rules, including 'unpost' on delete, are easily created within the field rules. Access 97 requires posting rules to be defined in a script created by the user and this is difficult to accomplish without creating posting errors.
_______________________________________________________________________________

[Finian Lennon]

RE: M/S Access

Phil:

>

It's probably important that you understand exactly what the Sales Manager means by this. I don't mean using Access so much as I mean what he may believe to be its ease of integrating with MS Word and MS Excel. This is a feature that MS (and now FileMaker) touts as a compelling reason to choose their products.

I doubt that there is much of anything you could do with Access in this regard that you could not duplicate with A5 but you might have to work a little harder for it. With import/export (or maybe DDE and/or OLE, both flawed tools, I think) you can probably sidestep this without sacrificing performance. Also A5V5 promises some improvements in this area.

I would also point the Sales Manager to the MS Access and Word newsgroups where he can find out that just because you are stndardized on an MS platform does NOT necessarily mean easy integration with other MS products.

Finian

[forskare]

RE: M/S Access

Phil,

I use Access 97 at work because, at the time, it was better than A5 for features and ease of use. However, A5 has come along way and has surpassed Access. I have been on Access newsroups and you can get lost in most anyone of them simply by the volume of users. Also, Access will not be able to provide the TLC that Selwyn does. His personal attention speakes to his commitment. He has responded to my questions several times, even providing a work around until the bug was fixed. I highly doubt you will find that in Access.

My experience has been that many folks are somehow mesmerized by MS and its claims. They fail to do their homework (such as you're doing)and find out things don't match the hype.

Kenn

[rtbtat]

M/S Access vs Alpha Five

I use both Access 2000 and Alpha Five. Both products are excellent and each will do virtually everything you want. Access does a few things better than Alpha, especially in terms of their extremely powerful queries and the ability to query on child records seamlessly.

However, Alpha Five has some powerful advantages of it�s own, especially in the all-important areas of Field Rules and Form Design. I think Bill Warner gave you the definitive response and I essentially agree with almost everything he said. However, let me give you a non-technical and hopefully simpler response.

I can tell you from experience that application development time in Alpha is anywhere from 50% to 75% less than Access. Why? Because Access is much more complicated then A5. I use Access 2000 and I�m surprised because they still haven�t figured out some of the nifty ease of use functionality that�s been built into Alpha Five for as long as I can remember. I must temper my comments with the fact that I am much more familiar with A5 than I am with Access, so that clouds my comments slightly. However, almost every person who I�ve spoken with who develops with both products, came up with the identical conclusion.

Both applications have powerful programming languages, Alpha uses XBasic and MS obviously uses Visual Basic throughout Office 2000. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I find XBasic far more intuitive and easier to use. Programming for Access, although it is in many ways similar to Xbasic, it is far more complicated.

[Howard Berg]

RE: M/S Access vs Alpha Five



Three cheers for the question itself and many more for those who are answering it. It's a big help
for those of us just starting out with Alpha5. As well as for some of us who got wrapped up ith
Access on the way. On the desktop which is my only experience Alpha5 is a powerhouse.
I'm getting done in days with A5 what took many weeks to accomplish with the other. If you are running a business like I am that is worth plenty. My employees all adapted easily to it
and I've already shown it to a few other business owners who were set to spend big bucks on
hiring program people to do it.
&nbsp
It's serious stuff for newcomers to see how well ( and relatively easy) A5 can be. There are
good and bad characteristics on all software. But for evaluating them as tools the above
messages are good information.
Howard Berg

[CALocklin]

RE: M/S Access

Since Bill has already covered most of my comments, let me add something that may or may not be pertinent: Be careful about people's concerns about "MS Compliant". I heard (don't you hate rumors!) that this often just means that a program uses the same type of icons and menu structure as MS programs. I can't verify it but it makes sense to me.

I think one of the key factors in your 'presentation' to the boss would involve a determination of exactly what 'interactivity' he expects. Perhaps also a better idea of what 'interactive' capabilities Access has. Then you would have a better idea of (a) can even Access provide what your boss expects, and (b) how complex is it to accomplish. Perhaps when armed with this info you will be able to make a better case.

Based on the comments from others above, and on my own experiences, people will be MUCH more productive with a program like A5. Even IF there are some things they can't accomplish (and I highly doubt it), they will USE the program much more because they CAN. Most people who use Access have to go to outside vendors for all but the simplest of tasks because they don't have the time necessary to gain the extensive skill that's required. Remember, all the power in the world is great but, if no one can use it, it's of no real value.

I would really like to know some examples where real people are actually using the 'interactive' capabilities between various MS products. It would be greatly appreciated if someone would provide examples. Most of the people I've run into simply use 'cut and paste' which can be done with any Windows program. Also, there is some OLE and DDE but it's usually very limited. Of course, A5 can handle all of this. (Although, as noted above, OLE and DDE do have their limits.) If I could get some examples, then I would at least know what I'm fighting against.

[forskare]

RE: M/S Access

Cal,

Here's one, I think. I use Access at work and at times would like to export it to Excel. It went fairly well but could have been better. Not being an experience Excell user, I foud that most tasks were different, at least for the way of doing things. Felt like a duck out of water and to save the learning curve, had to go back to Access and yadda, yadda, yadda. I guess it's OK just to export and sohw it in a spreadsheet type is OK but there is still a bit of fromating to do and then design the page for printing.

So, I don't export unless I really need to.

What would I like to see in A5v5? Queries like in Access as when dealing with a set, it's much easier to select the few fields I want to use vs deleting most fields and a similar method of establishing parameters such as, from (date) to (date). A5 has much stronger QBF but after that Access is easier using queries. But, some of that is which program one learns first. I really didn't find Access all that dificult ot learn and created an extensive database, all without code. To do the same in A5, there is some minor code but I can say that I stayed away from VB (Access' code) as it certainly is more difficult to learn.

All in all A5 definately has it over Access.

ken

[Phil Gillenwater]

RE: M/S Access

Thanks for all who have responded. I think what my boss is looking for maybe some exporting to Excel which he uses a lot. He really is not all that computer savy, but I think he "has heard" some recommendations from others. I have had Access 97 for a couple of years not but have never taken the time to learn it, since A5 has always met my needs and was so familiar to me. Thanks again for all the input, you folks are the real difference between the two packages.

God Bless,

Phil

[Jim Rowlen]

RE: M/S Access

Both have their advantages and disadvantages. While development time is a bit longer in Access, from what we've encountered in certain situations, it is bit more stable than the same operations in A5. While we've redone our v1.02 to Acces conversion to v4.03, we're constantly debating whether we should redevelop it IN HOUSE to Access/VB, stayt with A5 and hope v5 resolves these issues, or move to Oracle (arrrgggg).

While longer development time is a pain, so are the constant heap locks, crashes erasing all index definitions, damaged data, inacurrate user/license counts resulting in needing to reboot the server, etc. We don't want to look inept to our users who will be linking in through the web.

[RJGowan]

RE: M/S Access

Great comparison, Bill.
Regarding your question:

"Conditional masks are available. For example: If the country is Canada, the postal code should look like 5N5 B7B (or is it N5N 8B7 � I could use a good field rule here.) "

the correct format is the latter, N5N 8B7.

As an example of how to remember this, I refer to a little rhyme that CBC radio show host, Arthur Black, created to help his listeners remember the Postal Code for CBC Toronto, the home of his show. The Code is M5W 1E6, but all of Arthur's listeners knew it as "Make 5 Weiners, I'll eat 6". When he moved his show to Vancouver, all his mail had to go to "Vacuum 6 Basements, 4 Attics 2."

[smtobias]

RE: M/S Access

The others have answered your questions thoroughly, Phil, but I would like to add one other thing. The big selling point with Microsoft products being compatible with one another is a little overstated. That assumes that you want to dump your information from your database to your spreadsheet for doing calculations and to your word processor for merging into documents. This is not a simple, seamless operation. It requires a certain amount of sophistication by the user and can take at least two or three times longer than doing it in Alpha 5. In Alpha 5 you can create your reports, letters, labels, etc. to automatically merge your information with printed output quickly and easily at the touch of a button. It's comprehensive calculation capabilities enable one to do complex calculations from within the program easily and quickly simply by placing a formula within a field. The program even helps you write the formula if you need help and enables you to evaluate it to insure it is correct before saving and using it.

Good luck with your sales pitch. You may want to quickly throw something together to demonstrate to your boss what you were able to do in just a couple of days with the program. If you show him some forms, reports, browses and letters, I think he will be quite impressed.

Sylvia