Performance Issue - Using Access to Update Field in SharePoint

Question

I would like to use MS Access to update one field on a SharePoint list. I run into serious performance issues with MSAccess locking up for +15 minutes. Are there steps I can take to optimize the query or connection?

Details are below:

I have a local table in MS Access where the ID column joins on a corresponding column in SharePoint.

ID     STATUS

1      STARTED
2      STARTED
3      NOT STARTED

The update query is simple:

UPDATE SHAREPOINT
INNER JOIN ACCESS ON ACCESS.ID = SHAREPOINT.ID
SET SHAREPOINT.STATUS = ACCESS.STATUS

There are about 800 records to be updated out of a total of 3500 on the SP List. This seems superficially like it should run fairly quickly - as a SELECT it runs instantly. Is the INNER JOIN causing a performance issue? Something SharePoint side (with locking records on update)?

Any ideas on how to optimize or workaround are greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

We determined that there was a load-balancing issue affecting the SharePoint environment overall which contributed to the (otherwise inexplicable) performance issues in the update query.

N.B. - the performance issue stemmed from SharePoint Designer 2010 enabled sites. The Microsoft guidance on partitioning suggested that our environment could handle more simultaneous sites/users than it could in practice.