Lotus Approach

[Bill]

I have been sent an .apr file from Lotus Approach. I am sure there should be
other files too.

Can anyone advise what files I should have please and how I go about
converting them to Access. I have access to the area where the files are
stored but not to the Lotus Approach application.

Regards.
Bill.

 

[Jerry Whittle]

It's been a decade since I last worked with Approach, so I could be wrong.

Access can not import or use .apr files. Therefore you will need to convert
any data in the Approach tables to something like CSV files that can be
imported into Access. For this you will need Approach. Actually I seem to
remember that the data was stored in DBF files in the old version of
Approached that I worked with. You 'might' be able to import a DBF file.

Here's some more info on apr and dbf files.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&uid=swg21172044

Just because you have the raw data, it doesn't mean that it will work in
Access properly. As far as you know, the data may not have been properly
normalized and the tables are a mess. Also the relationships between the
tables won't be there. That's what I faced in converting an Approach database
to Access.

Approach forms, reports, etc., can not be used by Access. You will have to
rebuild them from scratch. If you have Approach, you could see how the
existing application works and learn from it.