Insights
Notes from the field on Access applications, getting them to users, and modernizing legacy systems.
Remote work was urgent. Building a secure data gateway took years.
A look back at how Database Gateway began in the first weeks of the pandemic in 2020. The post covers the later stages of development and describes the product as of October 29, 2026.
In the spring of 2020 the question was simple: how can people work from home tomorrow? Today it's a different one: how do you keep access to business data secure, traceable, fast enough, and maintainable five years from now? In between is the story of a stopgap that worked. That is exactly what made it so hard to replace.
Copying the front end is the easy part
If you look after an Access application for more than a handful of people, you've probably built your own updater by now. A batch file behind the desktop shortcut. A version table in the back end that the front end checks on startup. Maybe a tool you bought. And it works—most of the time.
Then it's Monday, a little after eight. The new release went out on Friday. The first call comes in: “It won't open for me.” Your coffee goes cold while you figure out why three people are stuck and everyone else is fine.
How on earth do you version-control an Access app? From Final_really_fixed.accdb to a build from a commit
Final.accdb. Final2.accdb. Final2_copy.accdb. Final_really_fixed.accdb. If you've maintained an Access application for more than a few months, you've seen this folder. It looks like a mess. It's actually a version control system—the only one a single binary file allows without extra tools.
Around 2010, plenty of Access developers were asking the same question: how do you version-control an application whose forms, reports, queries and code all live in one file? That question is also where the road to Office SDK began.
The fix was ready on Friday. Why did it take another week to reach users?
It's 3:40 on a Friday afternoon. The shipping report that operations runs first thing Monday has been totaling the wrong column since the last release. You've found the cause, written the fix and tested it. Ten minutes, start to finish. The new front-end ACCDE is sitting in your build folder.
It isn't on anyone's PC. The next change window is a week from Tuesday. Until then, the team will work from a report everyone knows is wrong, and someone in operations will spend Monday morning checking the totals with a calculator.
If you maintain an Access application with a front end on every desk, you've lived this Friday. The work is done; its value just hasn't shipped. That week is lost, and nobody wasted it.