Shared Outlook vs. Shared Access: Advantages and Disadvantages

Many people who use such Microsoft's products as Outlook and Access try to find a comparison review between these products and understand whether they can be applied to management of tasks in a collaborative environment. This short and quick review will help you understand features of the solutions. Also it will reveal their disadvantages that can force you to look for an alternative to both Outlook and Access.

In order to understand which solution can better suit needs for managing tasks and teamwork, let's review advantages of the solutions. Here are some obvious advantages of Outlook task lists :

• Several users can manage, change and synchronize shared tasks .
• Managers can organize meetings better as they can send agenda to all users involved.
• The roles management system allows/denies users creating, viewing or/and changing tasks .
• MS Outlook allows presenting any information (including diaries , records and calendars) in a convenient view by using forms. The forms let you create standard templates, common instructions and basic layouts that contain data fields of Outlook task lists . Forms give users flexible options to collaborate and communicate with each other.

Here are several advantages of Access database :

• Powerful tools to input and store business information in databases .
• Specialized tools to create and apply filters and forms.
• Create, manage, share and duplicate business data, including todo lists and reports.
• Set username and password for each employee to log in databases .

It seems both products can suit needs for task management in the certain way. However, now let's see what disadvantages the products have, so you can decide on MS Outlook, MS Access or even an alternative solution. Here are some disadvantages particular to both Access database and shared Outlook tasks :

• Necessity to buy expensive licenses for MS Exchange Server and SharePoint to support databases and file sharing in MS Outlook.
• Necessity to hire a specialist who will install and administer MS Exchange Server and SharePoint.

• Creating and designing components to manage business information in databases require skills and knowledge.
• If you are going to use templates for creating diaries or job lists, be ready to use insufficient functionality of MS Outlook as this product doesn't have common task tree view and options to automatically preset date&time characteristics when duplicating templates.
• When using shared Outlook task lists , you have to use five standard statuses of tasks, so you cannot create your own task workflows and customize existing workflows.

As you can see, besides a considerable amount of money to be spent on installation, use and administration of the Microsoft's products, you also have to suffer from insufficient functionality and some inflexible options. You can stop choosing between these products and start using alternative solutions which are based on effective technologies for user collaboration and data sharing. For example, you can try VIP Task Manager which uses Firebird, a free client-server technology.

VIP Task Manageris a client-server software solution for task and project management. It will help you organize employees and manage their tasks. The server component of VIP Task Manager is available for free, so you don't need to spend additional money. VIP Task Manager gives you flexible options to create task templates, customize task workflows and design task schedules.

Read also a new article about process management - project management client-server software for Windows