Dear Rachel:
When you use Microsoft Access, you have a choice of two different ways
of creating an application. One uses the Jet database engine and you
create a file called an MDB. The other uses SQL Server and creates a
file called an ADP. (MDB and ADP are the file extensions.)
If you are accustomed to the features and capabilities available in
SQL Server, or if you need them, I suggest you take the latter route.
This is available in versions of Access starting with 2000.
Using an MDB with Jet you would not have the same query categories,
Views, Stored Procedures, and User Defined Functions. Instead you
have a different set of categories: Select, Crosstab, Make Table,
Update, Append, Delete. None of these are equivalent to what you have
in SQL Server except for views. There is not a lot of conceptual
crossover between them.
The equivalent to many stored procedures when writing an MDB is to
code recordsets in VBA. If you know how, this is not greatly unlike
creating a stored procedure, but it is usually much more procedural
(not fourth generation language). The performance may also not be so
good.
Knowing how to write the equivalent to a stored procedure in an MDB
depends on the nature of the stored procedure. Learning how to do
this may not be necessary if you just stay in SQL Server.
Please get back with more details of your situation if you care for
further advice.
Tom Ellison
Microsoft Access MVP
Ellison Enterprises - Your One Stop IT Experts
