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BARJRDBARJRD 

Use MS Access with Office Toolkit

I would like to use the Office Toolkit (which I have installed) with MS Access.  However, when I open Access, I cannot see where to connect to Salesforce.  When I open Word, I have a Salesforce menu --- but nothing in Access.  I do not have the ODBC driver.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

Barb

Best Answer chosen by Admin (Salesforce Developers) 
RickNTARickNTA

I'm pretty sure there's no direct link between Access and the Office Toolkit like there is with Word and Excel - we don't use the Toolkit per se, so I'm not sure.  The way we've used the Toolkit very succesfully with Access is via the API, which involves fairly serious code - if you want to look into that, there's an Office Toolkit Developer’s Guide here: www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/officetoolkit/ot.pdf and also an online version There's no ODBC driver or equivalent that I know of, since that would involve a direct link between Access on the desktop and SFDC in the cloud.  HTH!  Rick N.

All Answers

RickNTARickNTA

I'm pretty sure there's no direct link between Access and the Office Toolkit like there is with Word and Excel - we don't use the Toolkit per se, so I'm not sure.  The way we've used the Toolkit very succesfully with Access is via the API, which involves fairly serious code - if you want to look into that, there's an Office Toolkit Developer’s Guide here: www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/officetoolkit/ot.pdf and also an online version There's no ODBC driver or equivalent that I know of, since that would involve a direct link between Access on the desktop and SFDC in the cloud.  HTH!  Rick N.

This was selected as the best answer
BARJRDBARJRD

Thanks for the help... I've logged in successfully using MS Access.

 

I'm going through the documentation now.  My main objective in using Access is to generate a few reports that are more user-friendly than those available through SF. 

 

Have you done much with report generation?

 

Thanks!

Barb

RickNTARickNTA

Good, sounds like you're making progress.  Yes, I've done lots of report generation, especially with Access (probably the best report tool around, isn't it?!) but not at all using Access with the SFDC API - is that what you mean?  I'm not sure that would be a good approach for any great quantity of data, but maybe that's because we've mostly used API calls for more interactive functions and I haven't thought about it for reporting.  I do know the Excel Connector works pretty well with relatively large data volumes and uses the API, so that's a good sign.  If you're planning on bringing bulk data down for reporting you may want to consider something like the Data Loader or the Informatica version that can run on a schedule, etc.  Good luck - Rick N.

BARBAR

Since I'm developing for a nonprofit, I'm looking for a low-cost (free!), "one-click' option for reporting.  I am planning to use SF for the majority of reports, but would like to use the API for just a few.

 

I don't want to require the users to export data from SF and import into another application.

 

What has worked best for you has far as dynamic report generation?

 

Thanks again, Rick...

Barb

RickNTARickNTA

I agree you wouldn't want users to have to export / import, but depending on the reports you're planning, I was thinking it could make sense for something like the Informatica data loader (free!) for weekly / periodic reports - schedule a download into an Access DB, then users can run reports from Access.  But of course I haven't tried that so can't vouch for the practicality.  I've only played with the Informatica loader but it seems good.

 

We haven't done any serious dynamic reporting against SFDC (lots against Access & SQL Server & others); when we've needed more complex reports than SFDC handles, we've just downloaded the data and then run locally with Access - not real dynamic... 

 

There's so much on the AppExchange - just a quick search turned up some free and non-profit-discounted reporting apps - might be worth a look.  And there's always the API! 

 

Rick

Intelladon-DMPIntelladon-DMP

Hello, I am new to this discussion board and a fairly new user/adminsitrator to Salesforce.  I also need to integration MS Access (2007) to Salesforce.  You mentioned the Office Toolkit and also, in between posts, you must have been successful getting connected.  I will look for the Toolkit but could you let me know what you did to succesfully get in via MS Access?

 

Thanks...

ezrasyncezrasync

I encourage everyone to leverage the Synchronizer Access MDB I've built, available for free download at http://ezrakenigsberg.com.

 

Suggestions/comments/bug repoorts welcome!