Yes — and this is actually one of the most common modernization paths for organizations that have mature Access applications and want to move to the cloud without rebuilding everything from scratch.
The technical term Microsoft uses is linked tables. Access can connect to Dataverse tables the same way it connects to SQL Server — through a connector — and treat that cloud data as if it were local. Your Access forms, queries, and reports continue to work largely as before, but the data layer is now Dataverse instead of a local .accdb file.
How it works
Microsoft provides a Dataverse connector for Access through the Power Apps component. Once connected, you link Dataverse tables into your Access database as external tables. From Access’s perspective they behave like any other linked table — you can build queries against them, drive forms from them, and generate reports from them. The data itself lives in Dataverse in the cloud, with all of Dataverse’s security, audit logging, and scalability behind it.
The setup process is roughly: install the Power Apps connector for Access, authenticate with your Microsoft 365 account, select the Dataverse environment you want to connect to, and choose which tables to link. Access then shows those tables in your navigation pane alongside any local tables you still have.
Why you would do this
This approach solves the most common Access pain points without requiring a full application rebuild.
The 2 GB file size limit disappears — Dataverse storage scales independently of any file on a network share. Concurrent user problems largely go away — Dataverse handles multi-user access properly at the data layer. The data becomes accessible to Power Apps and Power Automate, meaning you can build a mobile interface or automated workflow against the same records your Access users are working with. Security moves from file-system permissions to Dataverse’s role-based model. And you get audit logging on every record change without writing any custom VBA.
Your users who know Access keep using Access. Your data is now enterprise-grade.
What still works and what doesn’t
Most read operations work seamlessly — queries, forms displaying data, reports pulling from linked Dataverse tables all behave as expected. Simple inserts and updates through forms generally work too.
Where you run into friction is with Access-specific features that don’t translate cleanly to a cloud data source. Complex action queries — especially make-table queries, which create new local tables from query results — don’t work against linked Dataverse tables the way they do against local tables. Some aggregate queries and SQL syntax that Access handles locally may not pass through the connector correctly. VBA code that manipulates recordsets directly can behave differently against a remote data source than against a local .accdb back-end. And performance on large datasets is dependent on network latency in a way that a local file is not.
The more complex and VBA-heavy your existing Access application, the more testing this approach requires before you can rely on it.
The honest assessment
Using Access as a front-end against Dataverse is a legitimate and practical modernization step — particularly for organizations that aren’t ready to rebuild the application layer in Power Apps but want to solve the data layer problems now. It extends the useful life of a working Access application while moving the data to a platform that has a long-term future.
It is not, however, a permanent destination. Access itself remains a desktop application with its own support lifecycle, and Microsoft’s investment is clearly in Power Apps as the intended successor. The right way to think about Access on Dataverse is as a bridge — you modernize the data now, and you rebuild the front-end in Power Apps when the time and budget are right. Because the data is already in Dataverse when you get there, that second phase is significantly less complex than starting from scratch.
If your Access application is relatively simple and your organization has Power Apps licensing already, going straight to a Power Apps rebuild on Dataverse is probably the cleaner path. If your Access application is complex and a full rebuild isn’t feasible right now, linking to Dataverse buys you real improvements immediately and sets you up well for the eventual migration.
Ready to talk through your options? Reach out to Anthony at AccessEvolved — email anthony@accessevolved.com or call 212-951-1010. No sales pitch, just a straight conversation about what makes sense for your situation.