Why State and Local Government Organizations need a Microsoft Access replacement

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It is no surprise why Microsoft Access continues to be one of the most widely used applications within government. Local teams within departments have specific processes and workflows - for grants management, procurement, public interactions, you name it. Microsoft Access is flexible enough that these teams often bypass IT guidelines and quickly set up custom applications to automate these processes. This is why you will often find hundreds of small Microsoft Access applications across government departments - authorized and unauthorized.

If Microsoft Access is so great, why is an alternative needed?

Microsoft Access is readily available, with local installations already sitting on computers with Microsoft Windows. This is why it becomes an easy go-to option for managers and administrators looking to improve operations. What they don’t know however, is that many better MS Access alternatives and options exist today that do not suffer from the following limitations of Access.

  1. Microsoft Access is not cloud based. The most debilitating shortcoming of Access is the fact that it is a desktop based software and only available on a local computer or network. This is unworkable in the age of distributed teams where different team members need concurrent access to data across locations.
  2. Microsoft Access is not built for teams. Access does not have built in collaboration features, and becomes really slow when it is used in a team context. Modern online database applications allow real time concurrent editing and access of data.
  3. Microsoft Access is outdated and clunky. Access continues to have many of the same capabilities and user screens that it had decades ago. Cloud based software on the other hand have advanced vastly in terms of user friendliness. Using Access can be seen as using a brick phone in the era of smart phones.
  4. Microsoft Access is not mobile friendly. Modern applications have mobile apps for phones, or at the very least have optimized browser interfaces so that users may access applications and data while on the go. Microsoft Access is only available on desktops, and does not have a mobile app.