migration from Access 97

[TC]

Dear all,

We are planning to migrate an application from Access 97 to Office 2007. The
third party developer give us a very broad estimation from 10-30 man-days if
not major issues. I want to get more information from the experts here.

The application is mainly for generating reports from a Oracle 8i database
(will be upgraded to 11g too). I don't think they using very special function
for Access or Oracle. How do you think the migration effort required?

Any guideline and special consideration I should be considered? Do you think
recompile the original program can work or we very likely have to rewrite
most of the programs.

Regards,
TC

 

[Rod]

10-30 man-minutes would be a more reasonable estimate.
On the tools menu there is a convert database utility which should do the
job for you.
I only have 2002 in front of me at the moment, but I expect 2007 has similar
if only you can find it buried in the new menu system.

 

[david]

Major issues would be use of DAO transactions,
not likely on a reporting application. In fact, most
of the major issues which might de-rail this project
are not likely in a reporting application.

The third party developer might be quoting you for
a conversion from DAO to ADO. If so, try to find
another developer (one who knows what they are
doing).

Or the third party developer might just have seen
enough development to know that a 15 minute
job usually takes at least a week by the time you've
had the client meetings.

That is not a joke. If you want it done as a fixed-time
4-hour call-out with no support or completion guarantee,
rather than as an fixed-goal project, tell the contractor.

In this case, that would be a reasonable approach on
your side. If it doesn't work out, then you can re-
think where you are going.

(david)

 

[microsoft]

Ditto what they said, but get a detailed list of the work that is going to
be done, if anything. One of the nice things that MS has done is to ensure
that Access is backward compatible. Pretty much A2007 can open and run a A97
file without any problems. The only issue that I can see happening is if
there's a reference or two that needs to be updated, but that is highly
unlikely. I would upgrade a machine to Office 2007 and open the file, you
may find that it works as-is.

 

[Dorian]

Aren't you forgetting that after conversion, the application has to be
thoroughly tested. That is what eats up the time. Typically, I (for instance)
spend up to five times the development time in testing since I have to show
before and after images of every screen.
-- Dorian
"Give someone a fish and they eat for a day; teach someone to fish and they
eat for a lifetime".

 

[Dorian]

That's funny! I was involved in a project to convert over 1500 databases from
97 to 2003 and I can tell you there are LOTS of things that are not backward
compatible.
Many projects simply wont compile unless things are changed. This is all
documented by Microsoft.
-- Dorian
"Give someone a fish and they eat for a day; teach someone to fish and they
eat for a lifetime".

 

[TC]

Think for all of your reply, I would better ask the vendor to recompile the
program first for see what issue occurs first and ask for detailed plan if
issue occurs. is it?

 

[RD]

I had a similar experience going from 97 to 2003, although I only had
a little over a dozen databases to oversee.

About half converted fine. Half of what was left converted with
several minor issues. A few had to be significantly rebuilt in order
to work.