MS Office is pretty ubiquitous and lots of the free versions of office software are, in my opinion, pretty rubbish. So we use Office 365 on all machines whether PCs or Macs.
The good news with 365 is you automatically get updated versions and this week we have found the bad news is that you get updated versions!
The issue is we're working with a new client to create a customer management system that is web-based and automates much of their contact messages. Their old system is written in VB and uses an Access database (yes I know!). So a starting point is to get the old database (when I say database I mean single Access table) and convert it into a usable and suitably normalised format.
All good so far but when I try and access their replicated database Access won't open it as it's too old. A quick search via Google and Microsoft have answers for this, "Step 1 Open the database ..." Er it doesn't open is the problem, the solution can't start with that. It was looking like uninstall Access 2013 and install an old version with the Jet driver and then do the conversion.
Then after a good swear at Microsoft an idea popped up. Does Excel still have a Jet driver in its import from database routines? The answer was yes and the new spreadsheet can be used to import into something useful like mysql for further use with a little sql work to get everything in the right format.
A great example of "re-framing" in positive psychology jargon and we can now crack on and create the solution, no thanks to Microsoft though.
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