The reverse engineering feature in MUST is aimed at developers who still prototype new systems in Access, but have SQL Server designs which have evolved away from the original Access systems. This feature enables an existing SQL Server database design (with or without data) to be regenerated back in Access.

This feature is also useful to those supporting a variety of client systems who need a fast and simple method for taking a copy of the SQL Server design into Access.

The reverse engineering can also be used when starting a new project which you wish to prototype in Access, but you no longer have the original Access back-end or it is significantly our of date.

Note reverse engineering is not saying we are going to replace SQL Server with Access, we just want to get a copy of the SQL Server design, which will probably be forward engineered back into SQL Server at some point in time.

Reverse engineering extracts the following information from SQL Server

• Table structures and fields including extended field descriptions.
• Relationships
• Indexing
• Field defaults, some restrictions will apply.
• Check rules, some restrictions will apply
• Data

Any timestamp fields are removed, and any database auditing fields already added by MUST are removed; these would get added back when forward engineering a system.

Reverse engineering is supported on SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008,2008R2, 2012 and SQL Express.