Access DevCon Vienna 2025 - Day Two Recap

Day Two of Access DevCon Vienna showcased the perfect balance between business acumen and technical innovation that today's Access developers need to thrive.

The second day of DevCon Vienna 2025 delivered five powerful sessions addressing critical challenges facing the Access community.

• Juan Soto shared proven sales strategies for commanding premium rates.
• Philipp Stiefel and Adam Waller demonstrated competing version control solutions in a friendly showdown.
• Ynte Jan Kuindersma presented Power Automate as a practical Outlook integration alternative as Microsoft deprecates COM automation
• Mike Wolfe explored both twinBASIC's progress toward its 1.0 release and practical AI implementation strategies for developers.
• Colin Riddington showcased an impressive toolkit of productivity utilities designed specifically for Access developers.

Whether attendees were looking to grow their business, improve their development workflow, or future-proof their Access applications against Microsoft's changing technology landscape, Day Two's presentations offered concrete, actionable solutions they could implement immediately.

Proven Access Sales Strategies

Juan Soto proved that the most valuable skill for an Access developer might not be coding at all, but knowing how to sell your expertise.

Drawing from his 30-year journey building a seven-figure Access consulting practice, Juan shared practical techniques for commanding premium rates without apology. His approach emphasized positioning yourself above prospects in the power dynamic, demonstrating your expertise through professional demos, and reframing price objections through ROI calculations. Particularly valuable was his structured discovery meeting format: 30 minutes listening to client problems, 30 minutes demonstrating solutions, and 15 minutes discussing investment ranges with clients.

Access developers who implement these proven sales strategies can transform their technical skills into thriving businesses that clients respect and are willing to pay premium rates to engage.

Access Version Control Showdown

In a friendly but highly instructive competition, Philipp Stiefel and Adam Waller squared off to demonstrate their respective Access version control add-ins.

Stiefel's commercial Ivercy add-in faced Waller's free, open-source VCS Add-in in a four-round battle covering essential version control scenarios. The presenters walked through initial repository setup, making changes, onboarding new developers, and syncing code between team members, with audience members voting for their preferred solution after each round. While Waller's VCS Add-in ultimately won the audience vote (56% to 44%), both tools demonstrated strong capabilities for breaking Access's monolithic binary files into source-controlled text files.

Regardless of which solution developers choose, implementing version control for Access projects dramatically improves code quality, enhances team collaboration, and provides invaluable protection against costly mistakes.

Power Automate Offers VBA Developers a Lifeline for Outlook Integration

As Microsoft cuts ties between Outlook and VBA, Access developers find themselves scrambling for alternatives.

In his practical demonstration, Ynte Jan Kuindersma showcased how Microsoft Power Automate can serve as a bridge between Access and modern cloud services, including Outlook. Using HTTP request triggers, developers can send data from Access to Power Automate flows, which can then perform actions like sending emails, managing calendar items, or connecting to hundreds of other web services. While premium features require a monthly subscription, the visual workflow designer makes it significantly easier to implement than direct API calls.

This approach gives Access developers a sustainable path forward for maintaining critical email functionality while potentially expanding their applications' capabilities far beyond what was possible with traditional VBA automation.

twinBASIC and AI for Access Developers

The future of Access development may look fundamentally different with two transformative technologies on the horizon.

Microsoft Access MVP Mike Wolfe delivered a compelling two-part presentation covering both the latest updates on twinBASIC's progress toward its 1.0 release and practical strategies for leveraging AI in Access development workflows. Wolfe shared that twinBASIC continues to make steady progress toward full VB6/VBA compatibility, with exciting new features including Windows Services creation, Access-like reporting, and the potential for VBA editor integration. The second half of his presentation demystified AI tools for developers, offering practical guidance on using large language models effectively by treating them as "code reading mentors and code writing interns" rather than search engines.

Access developers who embrace these complementary technologies may soon find themselves with powerful new capabilities while maintaining compatibility with their existing codebases.

Access Tools for Developers

Colin Riddington demonstrated an impressive arsenal of tools built specifically for Access developers to work smarter, not harder.

His presentation showcased Database Analyzer Pro, a comprehensive commercial application that provides deep insights into Access database structure, helping developers understand and troubleshoot complex databases they inherit from clients. He also shared several free utilities including an SQL-to-VBA converter, a custom ribbon launcher for frequently used developer applications, an enhanced date picker control, and a system information collector that gathers technical details from client machines. Each tool addressed specific pain points in the Access development workflow, demonstrating Colin's practical approach to problem-solving.

These utilities represent significant time-savers for Access developers who regularly work with complex databases or need to streamline repetitive tasks in their development process.

End-of-Day Feedback Session

The conference closed with a lively feedback session where presenters fielded questions, shared insights, and Karl Donaubauer raffled off licenses for the popular MZ-Tools add-in.

Audience questions revealed deeper dimensions of each presentation topic—from Juan Soto elaborating on how he uses Copilot in his sales process to Philipp Stiefel and Adam Waller discussing how their version control solutions handle VBA's notorious case-changing quirks. Attendees learned that Microsoft's upcoming version control solution likely faces the same technical hurdles that existing tools have grappled with for years, while Colin Riddington addressed specific questions about his Database Analyzer Pro's handling of linked SQL Server tables. The session closed with thoughtful reflection on how AI is changing the development landscape, with Mike Wolfe suggesting that while coding itself may become increasingly automated, Access developers' business analysis skills will remain valuable in an AI-powered future.

As the conference concluded with thanks to presenters and attendees, the overarching message became clear: whether through premium sales techniques, version control implementation, Power Automate integration, twinBASIC adoption, AI utilization, or specialized developer tools, the Access community continues to find innovative ways to extend the platform's capabilities while preparing for inevitable technological evolution.

Acknowledgements

• Initial draft generated by Claude-3.7-Sonnet