Note   The Microsoft Office Access 2007 Developer Extensions are required to use this feature. See Introduction to the Access 2007 Developer Extensions and Runtime for more information on how to obtain the Access Developer Extensions.

Microsoft Visual SourceSafe is a source code control system that you can use for team development of Microsoft Office Access applications. Source code control systems track and store changes to database objects so that developers can review an object's history, return to earlier versions of an object, and develop objects and databases concurrently. Visual SourceSafe does this by using reverse delta technology. It stores only the changes to an object, not each complete version of the object itself. And, unlike other source code control systems, Visual SourceSafe is project oriented. Project orientation means you can operate on your entire database as a unit when it is convenient - you are not restricted to operations on a single object only.

Working with Access Databases as Visual SourceSafe Projects

When working with an Access database, you can store the database file and all its contained objects in Visual SourceSafe. Each database is stored in a Visual SourceSafe project. Query, form, report, macro, and module objects are stored as text files in the project associated with the database they are used in. Other objects, known as the Data and Misc. objects (tables, relationships, ribbon customizations, database properties, import/export specifications, and so on), are stored in a special file with a .acb or .acd extension in the Visual SourceSafe project. An .acd file is used for when your database is stored in the .accdb file format, a .acb file is used when your database is stored in in a .mdb fiel format. This .acd or .acb file should be treated with care; you should not rename or share this file in Visual SourceSafe, or you risk database corruption.

A shared object can simultaneously exist in many projects. When you modify a shared object in one project, the change is automatically propagated to all the projects that share the object. You can share a form between databases or have multiple teams developing a module simultaneously.

Visual SourceSafe Source Code Control

Visual SourceSafe can maintain multiple versions of an object, including a record of the changes to the object from version to version. Source code control addresses the following issues:

• Team coordination Making sure, by default, that only one person at a time is modifying an object, to prevent accidental replacement of another user's changes. An optional feature allows you to enable multiple simultaneous checkouts by different users for text files (such as code modules).
• Version tracking  Archiving and tracking old versions of databases and other objects, which can be retrieved for bug tracking and other purposes.
• Reusable or object-oriented code Tracking which databases use which modules so that code can be reused.