Access services in sharepoint roadmap

We no longer recommend Access Services for new web apps and web databases.

• In SharePoint Server this feature will be supported in accordance with the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy.

• This feature has been retired from Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online. We stopped creation of new Access-based web apps and Access web databases in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online in June, 2017 and shut down any remaining web apps and web databases by April, 2018.

Access Desktop databases (.accdb) were not impacted by this decision. Desktop databases have powerful features that make Access a popular way to create business solutions. We will continue to invest in Access Desktop databases by expanding data connectivity, database management, and other features.

Consider using Power Apps

As an alternative to Access web apps and web databases, we recommend that you consider Microsoft Power Apps to build no-code business solutions for the web and mobile devices. Although Power Apps is a relatively new product, Microsoft is making a significant investment in Power Apps to make it a premiere tool for business solutions, and is adding new features on a regular basis.

You can read more about how to re-create an existing Access web app as a Power App in the white paper, Introduction to Microsoft Power Apps for Access web apps developers.

Note: Power Apps is not yet available in Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet or Office 365 Germany.

Ways to migrate Access web app data

Most likely, you want to save the data you have in an Access web app. Here are several ways to migrate data from an Access web app to another data source.

SharePoint Lists    You can export the data to SharePoint lists. We recommend using the Export to SharePoint Lists command available from the Access web apps browser. For more information, see Export Access web app tables to SharePoint.

Access desktop database    You can export the data to an Access desktop database. For more information, see Export Access web app tables to an Access desktop database.

Microsoft SQL Server    You can migrate the data to SQL Server:

1. Export the data to an Access desktop database. For more information, see Export Access web app tables to an Access desktop database.

2. Migrate the data in the Access desktop database to Microsoft SQL Server. For more information, see the SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v7.3.

3. Once the data is in SQL Server, you can also Link to or import from an SQL Server database from the Access desktop database.

Alternatively, consider using the SQL Azure Migration Wizard to migrate directly data from the Access web app back-end (a SQL Azure database) to an SQL Server database. For more information, see SQL Server database migration to Azure SQL Database and the Database Migration Assistant.

On-premises SharePoint Server with Access Services    If your organization has an on-premises environment with SharePoint 2016, Access Services, and SQL Server 2016 you can move your Access web app from Microsoft 365 or SharePoint Online to your on-premises environment. For more information, see Move an Access web app from Microsoft 365 or SharePoint Online to an on-premise SharePoint Server.

Turn off Access apps in your Microsoft 365 SharePoint environment

If you're an admin, you can prevent the creation of new Access web apps in your environment. For more information, see Enable and disable Access apps in your organization.

Scan your tenant for the presence of any Access web apps and web databases

If you're an admin, you can use a new tool to scan for the existence of any Access web apps or web databases deployed in your tenant. The scanning tool produces an inventory list which you can then use to plan for migration of your Access web apps and web databases.

You can download the scanning tool and learn how to use it from this location: SharePoint Access App scanner.

Open an Access app package to work with its contents

A zip file is a single file that contains many files or folders and is used to easily archive or transport them. An Access app package is a compressed (zipped) file but with a .app file type. For more information, see Compress and uncompress files (zip files) and Create an Access app package.

1. Make sure the Access app package file is on a local or network folder. If the Access app package is stored in a SharePoint folder, select the file, select Download, and then put the file a local or network folder.

2. As a precaution, copy the Access app package file from <filename>.app to <filename1>.app.

3. Change the file type of the copied file from <filename1>.app to <filename1>.zip. When you are prompted to confirm, select Yes.

4. Right click the copied file, <filename1>.zip, and then select Extract All.

5. In the Extract Compressed (Zipped) Folders dialog box, select Extract. You can change the default extraction folder by selecting Browse.

   As a result, the contents of the Access app package are stored in the extraction folder as a set of individual files.

6. To deploy the Access web app data to SQL Server, use the appdb.dacpac file. For more information on using a DACPAC, see Data-tier Applications.