Total Access Analyzer Product Reviewer's Guide

Thank you for your interest in Total Access Analyzer. FMS is pleased to provide you with this Reviewer’s Guide to assist in your evaluation of this product. The contents of this document are organized as follows:

Contents

• Introduction
• Technical Details
• Documentation and Analysis Overview
• What's New in the Latest Version?
• Reports
• Errors, Suggestions, and Performance Tips
• General Information
• Conclusion

Additional documentation is included with the Total Access Analyzer product, including a printed User’s Guide and online help system. For more information, please contact our Customer Service team at 703-356-4700 or email marketing.

Introduction

Total Access Analyzer is the premier documentation and analysis program form Microsoft Access users and developers. Offering a comprehensive set of report functionality, only Total Access Analyzer can provide you with complete documentation, analysis, and error-detection for your Access database projects. 

FMS's Experience with Access

With over 20 years under our belts, no other Access software firm has been around longer than FMS. We shipped our first Access product with Access 1.1 in 1993, and are the winners of the most Access related awards. In fact, Total Access Analyzer has won every “Best Access Add-in Award” since its introduction in 1993. It has also won “Best Microsoft Access Developer Tool” and “Best Microsoft Access Debugging/Documentation Tool,” while FMS was named “Best Development Tool Company.” Read the Awards & Rave Reviews  page for more information.

About the Authors

Total Access Analyzer is designed and developed by a team including Luke Chung, President and Founder of FMS, Dan Haught, Executive Vice President, David Juth, Senior Architect, and others. This is the most experienced team in the world for documenting and analyzing Access database applications.

Total Access Analyzer Overview

The Problem

As Access developers know all too well, many database projects start out simple and rapidly devolve into complex collections of related and unrelated objects. There is simply no way to keep track of which object calls or uses which object, how data is related to forms and so on.  Developers could use the documenter in Microsoft Access, but the Access tool looks at each object individually with no analysis, cross-reference reporting, or detection of errors, deviation from best practices, and performance problems.

The Total Access Analyzer Solution

Total Access Analyzer solves these problems by examining every object in the entire database and their relationships to each other to provide the complete documentation and reporting options developers need. It also provides extensive module analysis so developers learn more about their code and how to improve it.  Additionally, Total Access Analyzer uncovers truly critical information such as broken or missing references to objects, unused objects (tables, queries, procedures, variables, etc.), inconsistent field types among identically named fields, plus many other useful suggestions to help you create better applications faster, and with more professional standards. Quickly identify and fix immediate problems, and learn how to develop better solutions in the future.

Technical Details

This section covers the technical aspects of the Total Access Analyzer product.

System Requirements

Total Access Analyzer is a Microsoft Access library database that runs within Access. Its system requirements are similar to the requirements of Microsoft Access, and include:

• A copy of the Microsoft Access version corresponding to the version of Total Access Analyzer.
• Hardware and operating system supported by Microsoft Access.
• 20 MB free disk space to install the product, and additional disk space to store your documentation

Documentation and Analysis Overview

Key Features and Benefits

Total Access Analyzer includes a complete set of features to make it easy to manage, fix, and enhance your databases with complete confidence:

Documentation Features

One of the main features of Total Access Analyzer is its ability to completely document all aspects of an Access database project. The documentation provided is invaluable for:

• Generating current implementation documentation during development: great for seeing where you are during and Access development project.
• Quality Control Analysis: Ensure that all object names conform to your organization’s standards as you do development.
• End-User Documentation: Provide the end user, client, or customer with complete structure documentation after your project is delivered.

Complete documentation is provided for:

Cross Referencing Features

After generating basic documentation, you’ll quickly see the value of the cross-reference information that Total Access Analyzer generates.

Object Cross Reference

Object cross-reference information shows where tables, queries, forms, reports, and macros are used throughout your database. This category contains several reports for flexible sorting and grouping.

Field Cross Reference

For MDBs, field cross-reference reports show where fields from tables and queries are used in other objects. Various sort options are available. Field cross-reference information is in its own category with its own reports because of the large amount of field references that exist in a typical database.

• The "Field References, Sorted by Table Name" report shows where fields are used, and is sorted by the referenced table and field names.
• Several reports are available listing fields referenced by the calling object. There is a report for all objects that reference fields, and other reports for just query, form, and report references.

Module Cross Reference

The Module cross-reference category has the most extensive collection of reports. These reports are available if you selected "Generate Module XRef. The data is based on detailed analysis of your general module code and the modules behind the selected forms and reports.

The available reports are similar to the items available on the Module XRef tab in the Documentation Explorer (see Module Cross-Reference for more information).

• "Module Analysis Summary" reports show the number of lines, procedures, variables and various other summary statistics for each module.
• "Module Overview" provides a one page summary for each module showing its public and private interfaces with their procedures, properties, events, enums, user defined types, library declarations, implemented classes, and public variables. Class properties are shown as ReadWrite, ReadOnly, or WriteOnly depending on whether the corresponding Get and Set/Let statements exist.
• "Procedure List" reports show a list of procedures defined in each module with information on their settings: procedure type, parameters, return type, etc. You can even include the comments of a procedure. The comments come from the comment block immediately before your procedure definition, or if there is none before it, the comment block immediately after the definition. This provides an excellent way to track each procedure's purpose.
• "Procedure List, Sorted by Procedure Name" provides an alphabetical list of procedures and where they are defined. This is useful as a lookup when you know a procedure name, but not where it is defined.
• "Procedures Called – Where Procs are Called From" is the procedure cross-reference showing where procedures are called from and the parameters used. This is ideal for reviewing procedure calls before making modifications to your code.
• "Procedures Called, Non-Event Procedures Only" shows the procedure cross-reference for procedures excluding event procedures in forms, reports, and class modules.
• "Procedure Calls – What Each Procedure Calls" shows a list of procedures called by each procedure.
• "Library Declarations" reports show all uses of the Declare keyword to access external DLL or EXE procedures.
• "ENUM" reports list every enum definition and its members. Reports also show where they are used.
• "Event" reports show events defined by module, and where they are raised.
• "User Defined Type" reports list every user defined type and its elements. Reports also show where they are used.
• "Variable List" reports show a list of variables declared and their data types.
• "Variable References" reports show where variables are referred to or assigned values (these reports may be very large).
• "Variable Constants" reports shows all constants defined, their assigned values, and scope.
• "Variables of Class Module" reports show variables based on class modules and where they are defined.
• "Classes Implements" reports show what classes are referenced via the IMPLEMENTS command and, for each class, all the places they are implemented.
• There are also reports for Line Labels, Access/VBA function calls, DoCmd calls, and DefType statements.

Diagrams

Diagrams are the highest level of analysis generated by Total Access Analyzer. Three diagrams are available for MDBs: Application, Data, and Object. (Only the Application diagram is available for ADPs). The diagrams are described in detail for the Documentation Explorer (see Diagram Descriptions for more information).

• All branches are expanded.
• The called object's module type and name is shown.
• There is a [See Num] field for objects whose calls were drawn earlier in the diagram. The value in the column refers to the line number where the original drawing is located.
• Lines are not drawn between root level objects.

What's New in the Latest Version?

New versions of Total Access Analyzer are available for Microsoft Access 2003, 2003/XP, and 2000. The X.7 versions are faster and detect even more errors, suggestions, and performance tips to help you create better Access solutions than ever.

Some highlights of the new version include:

• Documentation is faster and more efficient than ever
• Blueprint reports for form and report layouts are now available for databases that are in Access 2002-2003 format.
• During module documentation, the VBA IDE no longer flashes on the screen.
• Six New Reports are available, and several reports have been enhanced to show more information in a friendlier interface.
• Tons of new errors, suggestions, and performance issues are flagged to help you develop more robust and reliable solutions.

View the full list of enhancements

Reports

Report Options

Extensive options are available when printing reports, allowing you to customize your output for your needs, or your client’s needs. You can specify headers and footers, printing format, date/time format, heading colors, and a variety of module printing options.

Report Sets

Because Total Access Analyzer contains so many reports, getting the right set for your needs might take time. Because of this, Total Access Analyzer includes a Report Sets feature. The product ships with several pre-defined sets that make general report selecting and printing a snap, including:

• Executive Summary: High-level summary reports of all documentation
• Database Structure and Schema: Information on tables and relationships
• Object Cross-Reference: All object cross-reference reports
• Common Improvements: Common things to look for to improve your application

In addition, you can create your own customized reports sets that vary by project, client, or development team.

Errors, Suggestions and Performance Tips

General Information

Included Documentation

• A complete printed user guide

• Context-sensitive online help

Purchasing, Pricing, and License Terms

This section contains information on purchasing, pricing, and license terms.

Total Access Analyzer Pricing
Licenses		2003	2002	2000	97
	Single	$299	$299	$299	$299
	5 Seat	$899	$899	$899	$899
	Upgrade Single	$199	$199	$199	CALL
	Upgrade 5 Seat	$599	$599	$599	CALL
Upgrade from .0 or .5  to .7 within the Same Version
	Single	$99	$99	$99	N/A
	5 Seat	$299	$299	$299	N/A
Premium Support Subscription
	Single License	$299	$299	$299	$299
	5 Seat License	$999	$999	$999	$999
	More Information
Also Available as part of:
	Total Access Ultimate Suite
	Total Access Developer Suite
Runtime/Redistributable Version
Not Available
Licensing Information
Total Access Analyzer is licensed on a per developer basis. Each developer who runs the program must have a license. Read the License Agreement for details.

* Pricing and specifications are subject to change without notice.

Conclusion

Total Access Analyzer is the single best tool you can use in your Access development projects. No other product offers you the wealth of advice that Total Access Analyzer does. Total Access Analyzer is guaranteed to improve your reputation by avoiding problems before your users see them, helping you create more robust applications quicker, and shaving weeks off your development cycle by providing complete documentation and analysis.

Don't ship without it!