Convert Lotus Approach to MS Access

[Mike Chadwick]

We some Lotus Approach files. We are wanting to convert these over to MS
Access. Are there any convertion tools or tips on the most efficient way of
doing this? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You in advance.

 

[John Vinson]

We some Lotus Approach files. We are wanting to convert these over to MS
Access. Are there any convertion tools or tips on the most efficient way of
doing this? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You in advance.

They are VERY different programs, in concept as well as in structure.

You should be able to import the *data* from Approach, perhaps by
saving it to dBase format from Approach if you can't get it in
directly.

Once the data is in Access you'll very likely need to restructure it
into a set of properly normalized relational tables, and you will
certainly need to build Forms and Reports from scratch - they are
utterly different from the data presentation tools in Approach.

Good luck!

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Jerry Whittle]

It's been about a half dozen years since I did this. At the time, I couldn't
find any tools that would do the job automatically. Therefore I studied the
Approach database carefully. It's wasn't all that relational so that didn't
help much. I also studied the forms and reports to see how they input data
and what to expect out of it.

I can't for the life of me remember if I was able to link to the Approach
database or had to import the files. I'm thinking that I was able to link to
the dbf files. I do remember doing a lot of queries to import the existing
data into the new table structure.

Basically it was a matter of getting the requirements to build a proper
Access database then trying to salvage as much of the old data as possible.

 

[John Vinson]

I can't for the life of me remember if I was able to link to the Approach
database or had to import the files. I'm thinking that I was able to link to
the dbf files. I do remember doing a lot of queries to import the existing
data into the new table structure.

Jerry, that's right in line with my one (rather unpleasant <g>)
experience with this kind of conversion. I could never really get my
head around how Approach handles data!

John W. Vinson[MVP]