I lightly use Sharepoint - Too many problems and complications. Not familiar with Dataverse. On many occasion, Rick has advised his favourite is Access SQL Server Online and I'm inclined to agree. You're more likely to get better support if you use that

I'm not a huge fan of Sharepoint. After making my Access SharePoint Seminar I really got to see all of the limitations with it, so unless your organization is already using Sharepoint and is heavily integrated with it, I avoid it.

I've been using SQL Server for about 20 years (both online and off) and I use it for my website. It's what I recommend.

I don't consider myself an expert in Dataverse YET, so I'm holding off judgement for now. I plan to spend more time learning it myself soon. I know Microsoft is investing heavily in it, so it may be the way of the future, but you know how "up and coming tech" can be. I'll stick with SQL Server myself for now. It's tried, tested, and bulletproof. Plus, it's not going anywhere. The installed base is HUGE.

Hi David, to answer your question in a nutshell: no remote data source is suitable for Access.  Access is not suited for remote data because Access doesn't have a server component.  Remote data should ideally be handled at the "server side," but Access can only operate at the "client side."  Simply put, anything that handles remote data needs to be done where the remote data are, at the remote server (hence, server side), in order to minimize Internet traffic, because Internet speed is still nowhere nearly as fast as local speed (but it will be in, oh, 5-10 years, my own prediction).  Therefore, Access is ill-equipped for handling remote data.  

My advice is pick a tool that can run directly where your Dataverse data are, such as Power Apps.  If you use Dataverse, you are already on the Power platform, thus having Power Apps at your disposal.  Power Apps is similar to Access in that you design database-driven apps with textboxes, combo boxes, command buttons and such.  If you are used to designing forms in Access, Power Apps should give you a similar "feel."  The caveat is that Power Apps uses a completely different coding language.  Power Apps also doesn't have any capability to create reports, so you need to handle reports with other means.

This video shows a sample customer database app I made with Power Apps:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6eOT4YjFsc

With everything done at the server side, the performance advantage is apparent.  This app is able to do a full-text search-as-you-type operation on a remote table with 5000+ records, and it returns near-instant results.  Access simply can't perform at such a level because it has to grab remote data to the local end, and thus hurting performance.

I manage to do pretty well with SQL Server views and pass-thru queries. Data is still "handled" at the server for the most part and only the results are sent over the wire.

While passthrough queries run on the server side, many other Access operations do not: browsing tables, browsing forms bound to record sources, DAO operations (MoveFirst, MoveNext, etc.), etc.  So whoever designs the Access front end needs to avoid those as much as possible, and that reduces the usefulness of Access.  I once made a CRUD form for remote SQL Server data, and I had to use unbound controls and use all passthrough action queries to update data, which added much complexity to coding and design.

Thanks for the feedback, Kevin and Richard. I did look at Power Apps, but I find the logic and form control very convoluted. The overall UI is pretty awful too. I find Access more suitable for a citizen developer such as myself. And I have some experience with VBA. I also noticed that Access now has a connectors to SharePoint Lists and Dataverse, which I find it confusing since no remote source is suitable for Access. I also don't really have the time and resources to learn Power FX. (I work at a non-profit serving at risk youth, so no budget for training.)

I plan on using Access to develop a few databases for the small team in my 365 Group who will use the Access front-end in our office computers connected to Dataverse, which seems more suitable for a relational database environment. From there, I will generate Power Apps from the Dataverse environment so I don't have to dig too deep into Power FX. At the very least, I will use Access to develop and model the tables and then create Model Driven & Canvass apps for desktop and mobile.

P.S. Richard. I'm originally from Port Charlotte, FLA just north of you. Some of my friends along the southwest coast are still recovering from Hurricane Ian. I hope you are faring well down there in Fort Myers.

Hi David, I would suggest you give Power Apps another try.  If you signed up for Dataverse and don't take full advantage of it, you may as well use something else that is much cheaper than Dataverse, such as Winhost SQL Server hosting, which costs only $5 a month (paid annually) for the hosting of 500MB of SQL Server database size, and maybe $20 a year for registering a private domain.  The cheapest Dataverse pricing ( https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/ ) only gives you 50MB of database size, which is woefully inadequate.

If joining Dataverse was not your own idea, but someone else's, you may want to ask that person why he joined Dataverse.  It's likely it was because he had Power Apps in mind.  In my old job, I often had to use tools I didn't prefer to use, and I had to make do because all my colleagues wanted it.

I've learned Power Apps for about a month, and found that the form design and coding were not the biggest hurdles.  It was something called "delegation," which was a completely foreign concept.  I wrote about it at some length in this recent thread ( https://599cd.com/a?68749 ).  Basically, "delegation" affects how your queries count and sum your records, and you need to code in a certain way to avoid it.  If your app can't even count or sum correctly, it's no good.  So I consider it top priority to learn to handle delegation in the Power Platform.

Hi Kevin,

I appreciate your feedback. I work for a non-profit. Dataverse is part of our business premium subscription. Not sure who or why configured our MS package but I am attempting to look into this and maybe change the subscription. I'm passing on Power Apps as I don't have the time and resources to learn Power FX code. Furthermore, Power Apps along with Dataverse don't seem to be well thought out products. Perhaps they will mature someday but they are far from being no-code, low code platforms. I think my organization bought into this, lets say, questionable advertising.  Anyway, Microsoft is a little out of their league when it comes to SaaS and PaaS UI. Hence the reason I will try to nudge my organization to modern cloud solutions.