In response to one of the most requested items on our UserVoice forum, the Access team is pleased to announce support for a new data type in Access 2016—Large Number (BigInt).
A significant aspect of business solutions built on Access is the ability to read and write data to and from external data sources that use BigInt (as PK or other), such as SQL.
Add Large Number field to local tables
Large Number (BigInt)—now a supported data type—provides additional analytical capability and deepens the integration experience when users are importing/linking BigInt data. When creating new local tables or editing existing ones, Access now allows users to add fields that store BigInt numbers.
Turn on/off Large Number (BigInt) support for linked/imported tables
Customers specifically asked for the ability to import BigInt columns and link to tables with BigInt columns in a native way. We added an option for users to turn on/off support for Large Number in the current database. Turning Large Number support on allows users to import from and link to tables with BigInt columns, and have them represented in Access in a Large Number format.
Currently, support for Large Number in Access 2016 is available to Office 365 subscribers. This feature will first roll out to Office Insider participants and later to consumer and commercial Office 365 subscribers. If you have an Office 365 subscription, make sure you have the latest version of Office.
—The Access team
