Week in Review

Week in Review: March 29, 2025

Highlights include a video series on cascading combo boxes, parsing data using JSON and VBA in Access, and configuring DNS records for a custom email sending domain.

Mike Wolfe

Mar 29, 2025 • 5 min read

Just Published

^{This section includes videos, articles, and (occasionally) open-source project updates from the past 7 days.}

Articles

^{*Article descriptions generated by Claude-3.7-Sonnet.}

John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
- Sometimes, it's just the little things - #9: Auto closing pairs: A feature in VBE_Extras that automatically adds the closing partner when typing parentheses, quotes, brackets, braces or hash symbols.
- Sometimes, it's just the little things - #10: Better Bookmarks in VBA: Using VBE_Extras' Tasks functionality as an improved alternative to VBE's limited built-in Bookmarks feature.
- Sometimes, it's just the little things - #11: Qualifying references: A VBE_Extras command that automatically adds module and enum names to references for clearer, more maintainable code.
- Sometimes, it's just the little things - #12: The VBE_Extras Toolbar: The customizable VBE_Extras toolbar that allows users to add, remove, and reorder buttons for their most-used commands.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- Unintended Changes Deployed in an Access program: A discussion about preventing accidental deployment of test settings through improved development pipelines with versioning and unit tests.
- Dragging and dropping between Access Files: A time-saving technique to copy database objects between Access files by dragging and dropping from one navigation pane to another.
- Lazy Loading Class Instances on a form: A solution for unexpectedly lost class instances by implementing lazy loading in a form's Activate event.
- Ahh! Egg on my Face! (Or: Input mask and value options): A clarification about phone number input masks explaining how the value storage option affects whether formatting characters are saved with the data.
- Reformatting simple text based phone number strings in VBA: VBA code examples for reformatting phone numbers on field update and handling existing data through SQL updates.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- How to Delete Folders in VBA Using FSO, RmDir, and Windows API: A comprehensive guide comparing three methods for deleting folders in VBA, with reusable code examples for each approach.
- Mastering The ByRef and ByVal Dilemma in VBA Programming: An in-depth explanation of VBA's two argument passing mechanisms, with practical examples and best practices for their appropriate use.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Access Day 2025: Outlook COM Automation Alternatives: Resources and links from a presentation on alternatives to Outlook COM automation for MS Access developers as Microsoft transitions to New Outlook.
- Throwback Thursday: March 27, 2025: A weekly feature highlighting past articles about generating and using GUIDs in Access applications and temporary file management.
- Mailgun: Setting Up a Custom Sending Domain: A detailed walkthrough for configuring a custom domain with Mailgun to replace Outlook automation for sending emails from Access applications.
- The Final Pieces: DKIM and DMARC Implementation for Access Developers: A guide explaining how to implement DKIM and DMARC protocols to ensure reliable email delivery from Access applications using third-party email services.
- SPF Configuration: What Access Developers Need to Know for Reliable Email Delivery: An essential explanation of Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records and their critical role in authenticating emails sent from Access applications.

Videos‌

Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)
- Parsing Data using JSON and VBA in Access (01:12): with Neil Sargent and Leo (the DBguy)
Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Quick Queries #33 (20:57): Microsoft Access Quick Queries #33: Books for Learning Access, Force Shutdown, Multiple Modal Forms
- Multiple Cascading, Part 4 (22:28): How to Make Multiple Cascading Combo Boxes in Microsoft Access, Part 4
- Multiple Cascading, Part 3 (21:58): How to Make Multiple Cascading Combo Boxes in Microsoft Access, Part 3
- Multiple Cascading, Part 2 (20:47): How to Make Multiple Cascading Combo Boxes in Microsoft Access, Part 2
- Multiple Cascading, Part 1 (18:22): How to Make Multiple Cascading Combo Boxes in Microsoft Access: 5-Level Example
- Access DevCon 2025 Preview (03:28): Microsoft Access Conference with Tips, Tools, and Expert Sessions

New to Me

^{This section includes content I discovered this week that has been around for awhile.}

Nothing new this week.

Upcoming Access User Group Events

^{NOTE: Only English-language user group meetings with scheduled guest speakers or topics are listed. For a complete list of upcoming events, visit the}^{Access User Group event calendar}^{. Not all links below include the start time and time zone. For that information, check out this handy reference guide from Access MVP Maria Barnes over at AccessForever.org:}^{Access User Groups 2025}^.

April 02, 2025: Anders Ebro - Using Class Modules in Access
April 10-11, 2025: Access DevCon Vienna (Agenda - Registration - Speakers: Access Dev Team, Karl Donaubauer, Maria Barnes, Ynte Jan Kuindersma, Philipp Stiefel, Adam Waller, Colin Riddington, John Mallinson, Mike Wolfe, and Juan Soto)
May 07, 2025: Karl Donaubauer - Update, update...the company is in a state!
May 15, 2025 @ 9:30 am - 5:00 pm: In-person UKAUG 30th Anniversary Conference 2025, Imperial College London (Speakers: Armen Stein, Andrew Richards, Anders Ebro, Stuart Massey, Chris Arnold, Peter Bryant, Rod Gordon)
June 04, 2025: Colin Riddington - Large Monitor Support and Responsive Forms

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-03-22) and this week (2025-03-29).

The roadmap was last updated on March 4, 2025. The development priorities were last updated at the German-language AEK conference on October 20, 2024.

Listed below is a snapshot of the official Access Roadmap.

"In Development", "Rolling Out", and "Launched" are Microsoft terms that I pulled straight from the public roadmap.

"Development Priorities" do not appear on the Access Roadmap. Instead, they get updated from time to time in official Access blog posts or Access engineering team presentations. I'll include a link to the source of the current development priorities as they get updated.

Development Priorities

The items listed below reflect Microsoft's order of priority and were published in the following article, Microsoft's Plans for Access Oct '24 – March '25.

The items are listed in priority order according to Principal Engineering Manager Dale Rector. The "Expected Benefit" of each feature is shown in italics after the description of the feature itself.

New priorities added since the previous set of priorities are shown in bold below.

Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes: (Monthly Issue Fix Blog) Improved product quality and reliability
Large monitor support for forms: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware
Integrated source control: Simplifying the process of building mission critical Access solutions

Special thanks to Karl Donaubauer for posting the updated priorities at AccessForever.org.

In Development

None listed.

Rolling Out

None listed.

Launched

NOTE: Dates listed are rollout start dates.

AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements
SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities

Upcoming End-of-Life Dates

Here are the key end-of-life dates Access developers should track:

2029

[JAN 09] Windows Server 2019
[OCT 09] Access 2024 | Outlook 2024
[OCT 09 (or later)] Classic Outlook
- See "Edit 8/12/2024" at top of this article for official clarification that "both perpetual and subscription [i.e., MS 365] versions of Outlook will be supported until 2029"
- Support for Classic Outlook is guaranteed at least through 9 Oct 2029; it may be extended beyond this date

2030

[JAN 08] SQL Server 2019

2031

[OCT 14] Windows Server 2022

2033

[JAN 11] SQL Server 2022

2034

[OCT 10] Windows Server 2025

Ongoing

Microsoft 365 (with subscription)

Date TBD

Complete removal of VBScript from Windows OS (Microsoft Announces the Death of VBScript)