SharePoint and Access
Note: If you export the same table to SharePoint more than once, Access gives it a new name by appending a number (like Customers1, Customers2, and so on). If you want to replace a SharePoint list, you need to remove the list first (using the list settings page you saw in Figure 22-13) and then export your table.
Figure 22-16: Here’s the exported Access Customers table, as a SharePoint list. When Access opens the list for you to review, Access automatically uses the Access Web Datasheet view if your computer meets the requirements (page 737). This makes the list page look more like the Access datasheet.
When you export your data to SharePoint, you create a copy of that data. That means if someone edits the SharePoint list, your database won’t get the change. Similarly, if you change the database, it won’t appear in SharePoint unless you export it all over again. If this isn’t what you want, consider storing the data in SharePoint and managing it in Access using linked tables. Access provides an easy way to export your data and to create a linked table in one step. It’s the Database Tools➝Move Data➝SharePoint command, which you’ll use on page 737. But before you tackle this technique, it’s time to consider how you can use a quick-and-dirty import operation to snatch data out of a SharePoint list and transfer it to an Access table.
Importing a List in Access To import SharePoint data into Access, you can use a variation of the import process that you learned about in Chapter 20. It works like this: 1. Open a database in Access (or create a new one).
chapter 22: connecting access to sharepoint
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