Alternative Solution to DCount and DLookup with MS SQL Server Backend

One of the major issues we have encountered with Access is the use of DLookup and DCount when using SQL Server tables.  We recently worked on migrating a pure Access solution to SQL server and encountered delays on the loading of several forms.  This was due to the use of DLookup and DCount in the VBA code.

We then came up with a solution to quickly resolve the multiple instances with a couple of functions.  We were guided by another solution provide by Allen Browne who designed the Extended DLookup here in this link.

Allen’s solution improves the performance of the DLookup by:

• Including a sort order to ensure you get the result you need.
• Cleaning up after itself.
• Correctly differentiates a Null and a zero-length string.
• Overall improvement in performance.

We have now taken this one step further to work specifically with SQL tables or views, these will not work with Access local tables as we are specifically using an ADO connection.

I am including the code for both functions to replace both DLookup and DCount

Public Function ESQLLookup(strField As String, strTable As String, Optional Criteria As Variant, _
    Optional OrderClause As Variant) As Variant
 
    Dim rs As ADODB.Recordset         'To retrieve the value to find.
    Dim rsMVF As ADODB.Recordset      'Child recordset to use for multi-value fields.
    Dim varResult As Variant        'Return value for function.
    Dim strSQL As String            'SQL statement.
    Dim strOut As String            'Output string to build up (multi-value field.)
    Dim lngLen As Long              'Length of string.
    Const strcSep = ","             'Separator between items in multi-value list.

    'Initialize to null.
    varResult = Null

    'Encapsulate Domain in brackets if none exist to allow special characters in the Domain string
    If Left$(strTable, 1) <> "[" Then
        strTable = "[" & strTable & "]"
    End If

    'Build the SQL string.
    strSQL = "SELECT TOP 1 " & strField & " FROM " & strTable
    If Not IsMissing(Criteria) Then
        strSQL = strSQL & " WHERE " & Criteria
    End If
    If Not IsMissing(OrderClause) Then
        strSQL = strSQL & " ORDER BY " & OrderClause
    End If
    strSQL = strSQL & ";"

    'Lookup the value.
    OpenMyRecordset rs, strSQL, rrOpenForwardOnly, rrLockReadOnly, True
    If rs.RecordCount > 0 Then
        'Will be an object if multi-value field.
        If VarType(rs(0)) = vbObject Then
            Set rsMVF = rs(0).Value
            Do While Not rsMVF.EOF
                If rs(0).Type = 101 Then        'dbAttachment
                    strOut = strOut & rsMVF!FileName & strcSep
                Else
                    strOut = strOut & rsMVF![Value].Value & strcSep
                End If
                rsMVF.MoveNext
            Loop
            'Remove trailing separator.
            lngLen = Len(strOut) - Len(strcSep)
            If lngLen > 0& Then
                varResult = Left(strOut, lngLen)
            End If
            Set rsMVF = Nothing
        Else
            'Not a multi-value field: just return the value.
            varResult = rs(0)
        End If
    End If
    rs.Close

    'Assign the return value.
    ESQLLookup = varResult
   
ErrEx.Catch 11 ' Division by Zero
    Debug.Print strSQL
    MsgBox "To troubleshoot this error, please evaluate the data that is being processed by:" _
            & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & strSQL, vbCritical, "Division by Zero Error"

ErrEx.CatchAll
    MsgBox "Error " & err.Number & ": " & err.Description, vbCritical, "Unexpected error"
    
ErrEx.Finally
    Set rs = Nothing

End Function

Public Function ESQLCount(strField As String, strTable As String, Optional Criteria As Variant) As Variant
    Dim rs As ADODB.Recordset         'To retrieve the value to find.
    Dim varResult As Variant        'Return value for function.
    Dim strSQL As String            'SQL statement.
    Dim lngLen As Long              'Length of string.

    'Initialize to null.
    varResult = Null

    'Encapsulate Domain in brackets if none exist to allow special characters in the Domain string
    If Left$(strTable, 1) <> "[" Then
        strTable = "[" & strTable & "]"
    End If

    'Build the SQL string.
    strSQL = "SELECT COUNT(" & strField & ") AS TotalCount FROM " & strTable
    If Not IsMissing(Criteria) Then
        strSQL = strSQL & " WHERE " & Criteria
    End If
    strSQL = strSQL & ";"

    'Lookup the value.
    OpenMyRecordset rs, strSQL, rrOpenForwardOnly, rrLockReadOnly, True
    
    varResult = Nz(rs.Fields("TotalCount"), 0)
    rs.Close

    'Assign the return value.
    ESQLCount = varResult
    
   
ErrEx.CatchAll
    MsgBox "Error " & err.Number & ": " & err.Description, vbCritical, "Unexpected error"
    Resume Next
    
ErrEx.Finally
    Set rs = Nothing

End Function

If you have an instance that requires the use of DSum then you can easily adapt the DCount function to give you the required result.

After applying this solution we found a dramatic improvement in the performance of the forms loading and the design helps us to apply this solution to multiple projects.  I hope this solution is helpful to you and if you have any other issues that we can help you with then please reach out to us at accessexperts.com.