Greetings all. I'm seeking advice on how to navigate IT departments who are dismissive of, unfairly demonize and disallow use of Access. One specific question I have is whether there exists any sort of way I can get some sort of "Microsoft
approved secure" designation for applications built using Access.
Here is my bigger story. I an a software engineer and department manager with a Masters Degree in Computer Science (from 1990), 25 years running a software business with applications built in Access, and extensive experience building applications that
have automated a university department. In my current job, I am in the process of automating another department. The work I have done has transformed the ways these departments do work, and I have won awards attesting to this fact.
Many years ago at the start of my career I wanted to start my own business writing software to automate jewelry stores. I started building an application using dBase. But then I read that Microsoft was coming out with a Windows-based relational
database system. I stopped the dBase development and bought MS Access the day it came out, and have literally been using it ever since. I have created and implemented serious software development methodologies within the Access platform (VBA, version
control, split dashboards/data with ODBC connection to MySQL and SQL Server backends, etc). I design my applications very conscious of security -- I use compiled accde versions of the program, I password-protect and encrypt, and am always aware of what
I am doing and the security ramification and code accordingly.
Since leaving my own business and starting to work in a large, university setting, I have hit the unfortunate experience of IT departments, when learning what I am doing at department levels, saying from the very top "there shall be no use of MS Access,
it is insecure" .. and then they do not take the time and have the curiosity to speak with me and see at all the measures I have taken to keep things secure and the value my applications bring to the table. They just say 'not allowed'.
I have learned that IT departments' bias against MS Access has much to do with the way Microsoft markets the product: using MS Access regular office staff can create their own databases. Then human resource departments give office staff a 1/2 - 1 day
training course in Access. They go back to their offices and try to build something... it might work for a little while, but inevitably they hit something where they get stuck. Because -- let's face it -- building relational databases can get very
conceptually difficult and it is not the sort of undertaking that a typical office staff member is equipped to do. When they get stuck, they call IT departments, and IT gets very upset with Access since they do not feel this should be their job
-- and then they say things like Access is not allowed. Plus, they make blanket statements declaring Access "insecure" without looking at the specifics of how I have things architected, making the chance of any security problems infinitesimally
small.
As you can imagine, this has really roadblocked my career. I have been using Access since the day it came out in the early 90s and I'm probably one of the best in the world at knowing how to use it. But I am repeatedly trying to navigate the
resistance of IT.
I would love to hear the experiences of others and what was done to counter this sort of resistance.
Thank you,
Alyssa Siegel