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Question
Monday, November 24, 2014 4:31 PM
I need to track software on our system and am wondering if SharePoint is the best tool for the job. Our system has six different software baselines and we want to track software/workstation. So in a standard database, I would set up a user/workstation table, a software table, and a many-to-many table that holds software per workstation. I don’t anticipate any workflow associated with this, just a tracking mechanism. There are about 150 software titles and 91 workstations so there may be hundreds of rows. This may also expand to tracking licenses.
I see three options:
- Use SharePoint to track and maintain software/workstation
- Use Access and publish via SharePoint Services for Access
- Use Access as a stand-alone
We are trying to move our organization to SharePoint so I want as many functions as possible in SharePoint, but only if it makes sense. Thanks in advance.
All replies (3)
Monday, November 24, 2014 4:42 PM ✅Answered | 1 vote
SharePoint Lists are not relational. If you need relational capabilities, then you'll want to leverage Access (especially in many-to-many scenarios) or a SQL database, depending on scope.
The Access implementation in 2010 wasn't much to write home about. Try it out, but there are limitations (the publishing wizard will let you know what they are).
http://nikpatel.net/2010/08/13/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-access-services-2010/
Trevor Seward
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This post is my own opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion or view of Microsoft, its employees, or other MVPs.
Monday, November 24, 2014 7:20 PM
Besides what Trevor said, SharePoint Lists aren't a good repository for large amount of items. Although your solution doesn't requires a large amount of data right now, you should Always plan it for expected growth.
With that in mind, I think you should consider using a relational database instead.
Rodrigo A. Romano - SharePoint Server MVP - http://rodrigoromano.net
Monday, November 24, 2014 7:25 PM
Trevor/Rodrigo,
Thanks for the info. It looks like I need to stay away from using SharePoint for this task, including the SharePoint Access Web Service. I had thought SharePoint might be a reasonable solution after reading about combining views to create cross-list relationships, but with three table views it seems too complicated to be a reasonable solution, especially w/ this being so easy to accomplish using Access. I felt like I was shoe-horning this into SharePoint. Thanks again.
Ken