News
        
        Microsoft Deprecating SharePoint Access Services this Summer
        
        
        
			- By Kurt Mackie
- April 05, 2017
Starting in June, Microsoft will begin to phase out SharePoint Online's Access Services.
Access Services is a means for building SharePoint applications  using the Microsoft Access database management system. The applications created  using Access Services become accessible in a Web browser. 
It's possible to use Access Services with SharePoint Server  2013 and SharePoint  Server 2010, and Microsoft even added new capabilities to Access Services with  the release of SharePoint  Server 2016. It will still be possible to use Access Services with  Microsoft's supported SharePoint Server products, as well as future server releases,  Microsoft promised, in its  announcement late last month:
  We  will include Access Services and Access Web Apps in the next version of  SharePoint Server. Access Web Apps and Access Services will continue to be  supported in all current versions of on-premises SharePoint servers for the  remainder of the product lifecycle.
However, Access Services support will be ending for  SharePoint Online. The ability to create new Access apps for SharePoint Online will  end in June 2017. Microsoft will shut down any created apps by April 2018, according  to the announcement.
Microsoft is pointing SharePoint Online users of Access  Services to instead build their applications using PowerApps  and Microsoft Flow. PowerApps is Microsoft's template-driven application  creation solution, while Microsoft Flow is a workflow automation creation tool  frequently compared to the IFTTT mash-up service. 
The announcement claimed that the transition to PowerApps has  been eased somewhat by a new feature Microsoft added. It lets users export Access  Web app data to SharePoint Lists, as described in this  support document. It's also possible to export Access Web app data to an  Access desktop database, as described here.  A third approach is to migrate Access Web app data to SQL Server, according to  Microsoft's "Access  Services in SharePoint Roadmap" document.
Microsoft recently  announced a downloadable document for SharePoint Online users that's  designed to take them through the steps of using PowerApps, Microsoft Flow and  Power BI. In addition, Microsoft promised that future help will be arriving for  SharePoint Online users who are struggling with Access Services conversions.
"In the coming months, we intend to share any  tips/tricks/gotchas discovered while assisting customers through this time of  transition exporting their data and finding replacement solutions," a recent  TechNet blog post claimed.
Microsoft's feature deprecation announcement doesn't pertain  to Access database files. It just concerns Access Services for SharePoint  Online.
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Vlad Catrinescu early  on noted  the deprecation of Access Services for SharePoint Online. He added  that Microsoft's pledge of support for Access Services with the next SharePoint  Server release was "another proof" that Microsoft's server product plans  are still continuing.
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
            
        
        
                
                    About the Author
                    
                
                    
                    Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.