Final Lineup Announced for Access DevCon Vienna 2023

Several new presenters have been added to the Access DevCon Vienna lineup since I first announced the conference a few weeks ago.

The conference will be held online April 27-28, 2023.  Register here.

Update by the Access Team

The Microsoft Access Engineering Team will present the latest Dataverse integration enhancements, advanced Macro security features, and a next-generation browser control for modern web surfing. The team's presentation will provide exciting details of new features and improvements that are sure to shape the platform for years to come. The team will answer questions from the audience, and the speakers include Dale Rector, Joe Jimenez, Shane Groff, Courtney Owen, and Sachin Arunkumar.

twinBASIC Update and Defensive Programming

I will provide an introduction and overview of twinBASIC, updates on the project's progress over the past year, a demo of tools built in twinBASIC available to Access developers today, and discuss whether twinBASIC might make sense as a future migration path for Access projects.

In the second half of my presentation, I will cover seven different types of bugs and provide techniques to turn hard-to-find, expensive-to-fix bugs into bugs that are easier to find and less costly to fix.

Dataverse for Access Developers

Ynte Jan Kuindersma from birdautomation in Haren, NL will present on the Dataverse connector, exploring its structure and technology, added value, costs/benefits, and practical experience with Dataverse jobs and customers. Kuindersma has been working as a developer and trainer since the 80s, focusing on the Microsoft Power Platform in recent years and giving many trainings and presentations on programming, database, and BI topics at numerous conferences.

Automatic Form Resizing

Colin Riddington from Mendip Data Systems, Somerset, UK will be demonstrating the latest features of his free automatic form resizing (AFR) code for Access, which includes support for high resolution and portrait monitors, stretch/shrink forms, and image scaling on command buttons. With over 25 years of Access development experience, Colin is an Access MVP and co-president of the Access Europe user group, and his website and YouTube channel offer a wealth of Access resources and commercial applications.

Draw Gadgets on Access Reports

Crystal Long from MsAccessGurus in the USA will be sharing how to use VBA to draw gadgets that respond to data and modify objects by specifying colors and angles, as well as how to draw graphs differently depending on the data and scale gadgets for the available space and position them where desired. With over 20 years of experience in Access and Word, Crystal is an Access MVP who provides guidance and teaching to developers through 1-on-1 connections, virtual classrooms, and her website and YouTube channel.

Access in an Azure VM

George Young from Dawson Butte Software in Denver, USA, will be demonstrating how to host an Access application in an Azure Virtual Machine (VM) with a live demo, covering topics such as setting up a Windows Server virtual machine in Azure, accessing the application remotely via RDP client, and discussing features and limitations, costs for VM, licensing, and users. With over 25 years of software development experience, including half of that time at Microsoft, George is the founder and president of Dawson Butte Software and the president of the Denver Area Access Users Group (DAAUG).

Access Help Content and Documentation

Jeff Conrad from Microsoft will present a session on Access help content and documentation, covering various topics related to Access help fragmentation, context-sensitive help, and future improvements. Jeff is a Senior Content Experience Manager at Microsoft and has been with the company for 16 years. He has worked on the Access Services team as a test engineer and authored three books on Access. He now leads a team that creates Quick Answer help content for various Microsoft 365 applications and services.

Northwind 2.0

Members of the Northwind Template Team will introduce the new Northwind templates, discussing the 15-month process and demonstrating the new UI and code-behind.  

Tom van Stiphout is the Software Development Manager at Kinetik IT and an Access MVP with a degree from Amsterdam University. He enjoys creating high-performing Access applications and is a moderator on the MS Answers forum.

Kim Young is an independent developer and the founder of Access Allstars. She is a Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt and has been involved in various technology-related organizations.

Advanced Database Design

Armen Stein from J Street Technology will lead a session on advanced database design beyond standard best practices, covering techniques such as flexible user permissions, storing expandable data using attribute-value pairs, recording application usage telemetry events, and designing tables and fields to avoid hardcoding special values. Armen has been an Access MVP since 2006 and is the founder and president of J Street Technology, a team of 15 developers, designers, and support staff located near Seattle.

Modern UI Design Tips

Daniel Sanders from msaccess.nl in Amsterdam will showcase various design proposals, including using HTML menus, labels as menu buttons, a slider form for space optimization, and creating a modern-looking dashboard. Sanders is a seasoned Access developer with a background in building a dispatching, invoicing, and accounting system for his bike courier business. He is passionate about Access development, and in recent years, he has focused on studying Access extensively, with a particular interest in creating modern interfaces and integrating Access with other applications and web apps using Rest API, JSON, and Javascript.

NuGet for Access?

Kevin Bell from AccessUI in Redmond, WA, USA will discuss the present and future of Access features and tools, what third-party providers and the community have to offer, and how Access can create its own package manager similar to .Net's NuGet. The presentation will also cover the benefits of such a package manager for Access, tool providers, developers, and users, as well as how to overcome organizational hurdles and contribute actively to the initiative.

Kevin is a seasoned Access developer who has been working with the tool since version 1.0. He also worked for the Microsoft Access Team as a test engineer for Access 2010, 2013, and 2016, and is currently building equity compensation systems for big tech companies.

Karl Donaubauer will support Kevin in his presentation by helping to get this community initiative started and moving forward.

Acknowledgements

• Initial draft generated with the help of ChatGPT