Storing an Access Database and Working with it off of a Network Share / Drive

[Russellh]

I've read a few different times while researching some problems I had with access databases that it wasn't a good idea to store them and work with them while they were stored on a network drive or a shared folder or maybe it was with folder redirections as I once had a problem with the file after syncing.

Am I remembering that correctly? Is there any truth to that? I need to put this out there so that multiple people can work with it.
We have O365 but I've never used sharepoint. Is that the best method?

I have a lot of work put into the database and hundreds of complicated querries/reports. I already save the file as a backup file every time I change it. I had an outlook issue the other day and the only way to fix it was to do a full repair. Once I did this the database saved as the production version would no longer open. It gives me a "you have to save it as a backup to use the restore process" or something like that and then after I do that it still will not load the database. However I had the backup and I'm good. I have also had some of my querries get lost in the sense that they are renamed to generic names (like the query name now contains a table name and some different characters at the end but not like I would save it but my other queries or reports that use it function fine. I also have some that if you look at the properties to see what table it references there are just a bunch of symbols there but if you go to the SQL design you can see the real names of the tables that it uses to pull data from. Is some of this mess because I currently have it saved in my user/documents folder which is used in Folder Redirections to sync everyone's documents to a server so as not to be lost.



Anyways before I start trying to figure out how to share so that a couple of us can work on the same one instead of copying it each time to make sure we have latest copy each time we want to do anything I need to make sure I am not going to run into these kinds of problems just because of the way I saved/shared it.

Thanks ahead of time for everyone's help!!

[ranman256]

We always store the backend database on network share and it works fine.
Only authorized users can see the share.
Only authorized users have a copy of the frontend app
Only authorized users have their userID in the tUsers table.

It all works great.
BACKUP OFTEN. If used a lot, backup hourly. Its a simple command: COPY source , target

[Gicu]

The best way is to split you database into a front-end (that can be placed in each user's documents folder or any other place on their local drive) and a back-end placed on a shared network folder. Please note that you should not use folder redirection or "offline files" on the shared network folder as the syncing will probably mess up your data.

[orange]

More info on multiuser database from FMS