The Problem
A clinic network used a 1.6GB Access database for scheduling and internal records indexing. Thirty staff across two locations caused daily locking errors and monthly corruption events.
Compliance required audit trails and nightly backups IT could not get reliably from a file share database.
The Solution
I migrated tables to SQL Server Express on their existing VM, retained Access forms for minimal retraining, and added timestamp triggers for audit logging.
Cutover ran Saturday–Sunday with parallel validation: row counts, sample record checks, and report comparisons before Monday clinics opened.
The Outcome
Zero records lost. Locking errors eliminated. Report runtime for daily schedule summaries dropped from 3 minutes to 12 seconds. IT gained standard SQL backup jobs.
30
Users
Weekend only
Downtime
Zero
Data Loss
3 min → 12 sec
Report Speed
Monthly → none
Corruption Events
“Staff kept the same screens Monday morning. IT finally has a database they can backup like every other system.”