Week in Review

Week in Review: April 19, 2025

Highlights include an update to the VBA Graph API project, using class modules in the real world, using the QuickBooks REST API via VBA, and modern Msg/InputBoxes.

Mike Wolfe

Apr 19, 2025 • 6 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.}

Marcus Dieterle (LinkedIn Articles)
- Let's make ACCESS sexy again!: Introduces custom-built dialog replacements for standard MsgBox and InputBox controls to modernize Access applications with HTML-powered UI elements.
John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
- Restore points for VBA code: Explains how VBE_Extras adds "restore points" functionality to VBA, allowing developers to save and restore code, attributes, and UI elements similar to limited version control.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- Running parallel SQL server databases for testing: Details a method for creating parallel SQL Server databases to compare original and modified process outputs using Generate Scripts and database name replacement.
- Are you stressed when you're not coding?: A personal reflection on managing time, stress, and competing priorities when everyday life interrupts coding sessions.
- SQL Server -- don't forget your indexes!: Reminds developers to add proper indexes and foreign keys to SQL Server tables to avoid performance degradation, unlike Access which adds some indexes automatically.
- Logic errors -- the ugly step cousin of compilation and run time errors: Explores the challenge of troubleshooting logic errors that result in unexpected data rather than obvious error messages.
- Squashing the error 3167 "This record has been deleted" bug: Describes fixing a "This record has been deleted" error occurring when multiple instances of an Access application simultaneously modify a temporary table.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- Yet Another New Microsoft Access Roadmap Item!: Microsoft announces a new zoom slider feature (10% to 500%) for Access coming in June 2025, finally catching up with other Office applications.
- Using the QuickBooks REST API Via VBA -- Part 2: A comprehensive guide to performing CRUD operations with QuickBooks data using VBA, including code examples for retrieving, creating, updating, and deleting customer records.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Programming Modern Charts with Colin Riddington: Colin Riddington's DevCon Vienna presentation demonstrates how to leverage Access's 11 new chart types with full runtime programming and customization capabilities.
- Throwback Thursday: April 17, 2025: A curated collection of past blog posts highlighting the importance of simple, maintainable code over clever solutions.
- Access Community Update with Karl Donaubauer: Karl Donaubauer presents comprehensive usage statistics showing Microsoft 365 dominates Access development at 70%, while outlining Microsoft's roadmap and strategies for handling the New Outlook challenge.
- Access DevCon Vienna 2025 - Day Two Recap: Day Two featured sessions on sales strategies, version control solutions, Power Automate as an Outlook alternative, twinBASIC and AI implementation, and productivity tools for Access developers.
- Access DevCon Vienna 2025 - Day One Recap: Day One showcased Microsoft's continued commitment to Access with presentations on community statistics, modern charts functionality, Graph API for Outlook integration, VBA development tools, and Microsoft's product roadmap.

Videos‌

Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)
- Using Class Modules in the Real World (57:09): with Anders Ebro
Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Quick Queries #36 (22:49): Microsoft Access Quick Queries #36: Use Dlookup Not Dcount, Query Properties, More!
- Field Value Substitutions, Part 1 (14:41): Fix Typos with Field Value Substitutions in Microsoft Access Using Update Queries
- Field Value Substitutions, Part 2 (10:34): Fix Typos with Field Value Substitutions in Microsoft Access Using Update Queries, Part 2
- Field Value Substitutions, Part 3 (10:21): Fix Typos with Field Value Substitutions in Microsoft Access Using Update Queries, Part 3

Select Open Source Projects: New Releases

VBA-MicrosoftGraph
- Release 1.3: Added retry logic for when the Token expires approximately 60-90 minutes after being obtained. Also added a Logout routine in the Graph module to logout of your sign on in the tools instance of the Edge browser.

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 29, 2025] Maria Barnes: The State of Access (JUST ADDED)
[May 01, 2025] Leverage SQL Server Stored Procedures and other code with PowerApps and (some) Web Apps (JUST ADDED)
[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 (2025-04-12) and this week (2025-04-19).

The roadmap was last updated on April 10, 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

JUN 2025: Add zoom slider magnification to Microsoft Access: Access will add magnification slider (10% to 500%) in lower right of the application, similar to the feature in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. It will also be keyboard accessible and available on the ribbon.
JUL 2025: Modernize Access Forms and Reports to work well on Large Format Monitors: Remove the 22-inch size limit and modernize Access forms and reports work well on large format monitors and provide responsive behavior for different form factors.

Rolling Out

None listed.

Launched

NOTE: Dates listed are rollout start dates.

AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements: A top ask from customers is to modernize Access charts and to support better data visualization in Access. To satisfy this user request, we are integrating a new charting package called “Ivy” into Access. Ivy is a charting package written by the Office DVX team that is currently used in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities: The Monaco Editor is the fully featured code editor from VS Code with standard IDE functionality such as syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, and autocomplete.

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)