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The main purpose of this page is to announce news and forthcoming events related to Access

It is also used to explain how you can catch up on some recent events you may have missed including web links and YouTube videos where available.

I hope you find this information useful.

If you are aware of other forthcoming events of interest, please let me know by email





Section Links:
        Access News
        Forthcoming Events
        Recent / Past Events





Access News


Access User Group - Europe

A new online Europe chapter of Access User Groups was launched in March 2022. This meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 18:00/6 PM London (UK) time.

The group is co-chaired by Colin Riddington and Alessandro Grimaldi. It provides a forum for IT professionals, developers, and new users to share and learn about Microsoft Access.

The group focus is on innovative and lesser known features in Access with an invited speaker discussing a topic relevant to Access developers for the first 45 minutes of the session. The remaining time is used to answer questions, share ideas and suggest topics for future sessions.

More details are available at the AUG Europe webpage and on the Access Europe section of this website.

Each session is recorded and uploaded to the Access Europe channel on YouTube.

Please subscribe to get advance notice about topics planned for future meetings. Do join us!



Access News - YouTube

Great news! Karl Donaubauer (Access MVP) has now released several editions of a series of quarterly 'newscasts' where he shares the latest news about Microsoft Access.

The videos are each about 30 minutes in length and are now available on Karl's YouTube channel.
The videos are both entertaining and informative. Enjoy!



Access Forever

Karl Donaubauer has also created a blog site called Access Forever (AFo) to promote Microsoft Access. I am one of a group of 5 current and former MVPs who are collaborating to release information about Access bugs, tool, events and findings.

The AFo website can be found at https://www.accessforever.org/. Do check the site regularly!



Forthcoming Events


UK Access User Group Conference         Tues 9 April 2024

This will be a one day in-person conference held at Imperial College in London, UK.
The conference costs just £20 (to cover lunch and refreshments). Group membership is free.

The event will include 5 sessions as follows:
1.   VBA Under the Bonnet (Adrian Bell)
2.   Safer GP Buttercup Data Collection (James Brimicombe)
3.   Optimising SQL Traffic from the Back-end to the Front-end (Peter Bryant)
4.   Application Architectures with Access and the Internet - discussion led by Rod Gordon
5.   Automating an Access & SQL Database, including Web Forms, with No Code (Andrew Richards)

For further details and to book your place, go to the UK Access User Group website.




Access DevCon 2024         Thur 18/ Fri 19 April 2024 (2 days)

The next online 2 day Access DevCon conference will be on 18/19 April 2024

The agenda is still being finalised but is likely to include a total of 12 sessions over the 2 day event.

Sessions already announced include:
1.   Update by the Access Team
2.   Access Community Update / UI Ergonomics and Design (Karl Donaubauer)
3.   Unleashing Microsoft Copilot and Azure AI (Martina Grom)
4.   SD OpenAI MS Access Add-In (Alexander Denz)
5.   You can REALLY do all that with Forms? (Colin Riddington)
6.   Microsoft Fabric (Ynte Jan Kuindersma)
7.   Custom Add-In Creation with twinBASIC (Mike Wolfe)
8.   Powerful Customer Communication (Armen Stein)
9.   Centralizing Dispersed Data (Crystal Long)
10.   Tools for Access (Peter Cole, Mike Wolfe)

For further details about each session and to book your place, go to the Access DevCon website.



Access Europe User Group         First Wed of each month

For details of all speakers and topics at all forthcoming sessions of the Europe chapter of AccessUserGroups.org, please see the dedicated page elsewhere on this website: Access User Groups: Europe (AEU) or visit the Access Europe website



Recent / Past Events


Access Europe User Group (AEU)         Sept 2023

I ran a presentation on my new Database Analyzer Pro application for the Access Europe User Group on Wed 6 Sept 2023

For more details, see: Access Europe – Colin Riddington (Database Analyzer and Other Tools)

The session was recorded and the video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access DevCon 2023         April 2023 (2 days)

I led a session at the online Access DevCon conference on 28 April 2023 called Making Automatic Form Resizing Work For You. This included a review of all the latest AFR features as well as live demonstrations to show how easy it is to use automatic form resizing to successfully convert:
a)   An ‘oversized form’ originally created in a high resolution
b)   An old Northwind database created for Access 2000 in 800*600 resolution

Full details of all conference sessions and speakers are available on the Access DevCon website.



Access Lunchtime User Group (AL)        Jan 2023

I led an online session on Translation Tools in Access for the Access Lunchtime User Group on Tues 31 Jan 2023. In the first part of the session, I demonstrated my Translate and Speak app which is a practical application of Text to Speech . The rest of the session was used to demonstrate my Access Application Translator app which is due for release in March 2023



The session was recorded and the video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access Europe User Group (AEU)         Dec 2022

I ran a presentation on Annotating Google Maps in Access for the Access Europe User Group on 7 Dec 2022

For more details, see: Access Europe – Colin Riddington (Annotating Google Maps in Access)

The session was recorded and the video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access Espana User Group (AES)         Nov 2022

I led an online session for the Access Espana User Group on Thur 17 Nov 2022. The topic was Controlling the Application Interface / Attention Seeking Database . My contribution was in English with simultaneous translation to Spanish by George Young (organiser of the Denver Area Access User Group)

For more details, see:

Access Espana – Colin Riddington (Controlling the Application Interface)

The video of the session is available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access Europe User Group (AEU)         Sept 2022

I led an online session on Optimising Queries and the JET ShowPlan for the Access Europe User Group on 7 Sept 2022

For more details, see:

Access Europe – Colin Riddington (Optimising Queries and the JET ShowPlan)

The video of the session is available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access DevCon 2022         April 2022

I was pleased to run two sessions at the online Access DevCon 2 day conference on 28/29 April 2022:
- Annotating Google Maps
- Translate & Speak

Full details of all conference sessions and speakers are available on the DevCon website.

Videos from three of the DevCon sessions are now available on Karl Donaubauer's YouTube channel.



Access User Group - Europe (AEU)         Mar 2022

The first meeting of the new Europe (AEU) chapter of AccessUserGroups.org was held on Wed 2 March 2022.
It was co-hosted by Alessandro Grimaldi and myself (Colin Riddington).

The video of the first meeting is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.

All meetings are held on the first Wed of each month at 18:00 UK time
Please subscribe to get advance notice about the topics planned for future meetings of the new chapter.



Denver Area Access User Group - (DAAUG)         Feb 2022

I was also asked to run an updated version of my Automatic Form Resizing presentation to the online Denver Area Access User Group on Thursday 17 Feb . The latest version includes guidance on using automatic form resizing with datasheets and navigation forms.

The session video is now available at the Denver Area Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



UK Access User Group (UK AUG)         Feb 2022

I led an online session for the UK Access User Group earlier this year on Automatic Form Resizing

Another scheduled online session on Controlling the Application Interface was originally planned for Wed 8 June. This may happen at a future date.

Further details will be published at a later date at the UK Access User Group website.



Access User Group - Eastern Time (ET)         Dec 2021

I recently led a session on Controlling the Application Interface to the online AUG ET group on Friday 17 Dec 2021. Further details about this event are available at the Access User Groups website.

The session video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access User Group - Pacific (AP)         Dec 2021

Michael Aldridge was, at that time, the Principal Program Manager for Access at Microsoft. Michael led a session explaining the Updated Access Roadmap and the new Access Connector for Dataverse.

The session video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access User Group - Lunchtime (AL)         Nov 2021

Peter Cole of ThemeMyDatabase.co.uk led an excellent session where he explained how to update API declarations to work in 64-bit Access.

The session video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access User Group - Lunchtime (AL)         Sept 2021

I ran a session on Automatic Form Resizing to the online AUG Lunchtime group on Tue 28 Sept 2021.

The 1 hour session showed how to resize and reposition Access forms and their controls for users with different screen sizes and resolutions. The session also covered zooming forms in/out.

All
required code is available FREE.

The session video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access User Group - Pacific (AP)         Sept 2021

Crystal Long (MVP) and I jointly ran a session on obtaining Extended File Properties using Access to the online AUG Pacific group on Thur 2 Sept 2021.

The 1 hour session was used to demonstrate two free Access applications used to obtain the extended file properties of any file or group of files in Windows.

All required code is available FREE.

The session video is now available at the Access User Groups channel on YouTube.



Access DevCon         Apr 2021

I ran a session to introduce the main features of my JSON Analyse & Transform for Access (JATFA) application to the online Access DevCon 2021 conference on Fri 23 April 2021.

This app was designed to make importing and handling JSON files in Access both a straightforward and, in many cases, a largely automated task.

For more information, see JSON Analyse & Transform for Access (JATFA)

The session video is now available at the Access DevCon channel on YouTube.



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