Creating SharePoint Forms With Access 2013 Web Apps

This article shows how to create forms with Access 2013 Web Apps. Access 2013 now provides the ability for a business user to rapidly create end-to-end web-based business solutions, including those that involve custom forms. Some examples of business solutions that are prime candidates for Access 2013 include apps for task management, contact management and inventory management. Business solutions created with Access 2013, packaged into apps and deployed onto SharePoint can be used by anyone within an organization or shared externally via the SharePoint Store. Microsoft now recommends use of Access 2013 forms for new end-to-end business solutions that include forms.

Before going into the demo let me provide you some pros and cons of using Access 2013 Web apps. So that you can decide before starting the project whether it is the right choice for your organization.

Advantages of Access 2013 Web Apps

• You can build them directly in an Access 2013 client
• They support relational data on multiple levels
• No coding is required
• Better security and scalability since the backend for this is SQL Server 2012

Disadvantage of Access Web Apps

• We can't integrate Access forms with SharePoint Designer work flows directly
• Security is basic for the forms we can't set edit alone or add single permissions to the form

We can now create a simple Access form from the available Access template. First open Access 2013 then you can have a screen as shown below. Now select the Task Management template from the available list. You can even search or download a template if the specific one you are searching for is not in the list available.

Here I am going with a Task Management template.



Select the template, you will get the following screen. You need to provide a name for your app. Then you need to provide a web URL location. I have given my Office 365 site URL. Then click OK.



It will take some time to load and create the form in SharePoint 2013.



Once created you can see the form as shown below.



Click on the Task to see the form. There is an Edit icon you can see, if you want to edit the form please click on it.



Once clicked on the edit form, you will get the form design as in the following. You can edit any field test as shown below.



On the right corner you have an option to edit the table. By clicking on this you can see the table structure. If you want to change the type of any field then you can do that from this screen.

If you want to change the type of any field you can do that from this screen.



If you want to change the type of any field then you can do that from this screen.



Now we are done with some changes. Let's see how to open the app in the SharePoint browser. On the File TAB there is a button on the ribbon named Launch App. Click on it to open the app in the browser.



You can see our Task app opened in the browser. We can add some data and can save it. You have options to add new records or delete records as shown in the following image:



If you want to create custom forms you can select the custom Web App from the menu options.





Here I am just creating a custom form.