Hybrid Application for Indian Children

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Application Profile

Name	ZuKi Database
Tasks	Administration of children and sponsor data for a charity
Users	15-20 distributed, remote
Software Versions	Access (all versions from 2010 on), Sharepoint Online, Power Apps
Particularities	Hybrid application with local and mobile frontend and online backend, Access saves the world (at least it helps to improve it for some children)

I have been volunteering for the Austrian charity ZuKi (Zukunft für Kinder = a future for children) for almost 10 years. It currently takes care of about 1000 Indian street children in several projects, provides them with clothing, food, safe accommodation and enables them to receive schooling and vocational training.

ZuKi's logo

The path to Access was the classic one: in 2015, the ZuKi managers contacted me because the growing volume and complexity of their data meant that the Excel sheets for managing donors, children and their relationships were no longer adequate. The managers are a distributed group of inhomogeneous users with different requirements in terms of computer experience and equipment. That was one challenge. The other was that it should cost as little as possible.

M365 for Nonprofits

I therefore helped them get free M365 subscriptions for nonprofits, which Microsoft offers to recognized charities. Since then, we've been using the included Sharepoint as online data storage (i.e. backend) for an Access application to manage their data. If users do not have Access, the Office desktop applications are available with these accounts for a small additional charge. These are the only costs incurred, and they could theoretically be saved by using the Access Runtime version. However, we sometimes need a debugging option if there are problems with installations.

Children search in the Access frontend

Two frontends

Why Access? Not only because it's what I do best. ;-) We need flexible querying for accounting and tax aspects, for evaluations or to select communication recipients. We also need various quick data imports and exports. For such variable, often ad-hoc data tasks, Access is unbeatable.

The main disadvantage with the Access frontend are installation problems due to different Office versions and variants already installed, Apples with MacOS, distributed remote-only users etc. Therefore, after a few years, I created an additional frontend with Power Apps, which offers less functionality, but can be used on any smartphone or tablet and any operating system without complicated installation. The intensive users work with the Access frontend, the others often use the mobile/web frontend.

Children search in the Power Apps frontend

Sharepoint

Sharepoint as a backend runs smoothly with the few thousand records we are talking about here, and thanks to the relatively easy-to-use linking in Access, it works with not outstanding, but decent performance if you're aware of the few quirks. For Power Apps, Sharepoint is a very frequently used and high-performance backend anyway.

Structure of the ZuKi system

Hybrid Applications/Apps

Speaking of hybrid... Some of my customers with an Access application and a local backend (usually ACE or SQL Server) needed a mobile frontend, e.g. for field staff or travel logging. I provided them with an additional Power Apps frontend and Sharepoint backend. The fraction of their total data that they really need on the road is synchronized back and forth between the big local backend and the light Sharepoint backend using Access queries.

Structure of my usual hybrid applications/apps

I think that such hybrid systems are still used far too little to extend Access applications, even though I have been preaching them in presentations and workshops for some years. For many Access solutions, this would mean a boost in adaptation to today's frequent requirement that part of the data has to be available everywhere and people love mobile devices.