Sean O'Halloran
Registered User.
- Local time
- Today, 08:11
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2002
- Messages
- 52
..Or: "What Access Can Do That Powerbuilder Can't"...
Six years ago I picked up one of those 1500 page MS Access tomes, found Pat Hartman, The Doc Man, and many others here on this forum, then sat down for two weeks and laid down the foundation of a database ( "GINGER" ) that has been used by several hundred of my fellow social workers. It holds all the data relevant to creating professional risk assessments and other paperwork necessary for our work here in the Baltimore County, Maryland Dept. of Social Services.
It took me about 90 minutes to show a person how to use GINGER. Once a user had worked two cases with GINGER they were hooked - no one went back to using the MS Word templates floating around the office, which was the prior work process.
Five years ago the State of Maryland began building a database. It was intended to give social workers who protect children a tool to assess the risk of harm to children, document services we provide, track foster children, send relevant data to Washington, and (this was the big selling point!) share our records with other social workers who might work with those children and families in the future. We were told that the application, built with Powerbuilder by Deloitte and Touche, would save us social workers time and effort, speed up our services, create all our paperwork, and free us to spend more time with our clients.
Social workers from my agency are currently in training on the State system - 4 days of training to learn how to enter data - and several of them have come back weeping; others threatening to quit their jobs.
They said that the State system doesn't hold half the data we need, it is slow, complex, clumsy and confusing, it doesn't allow the user to correct entry errors in vital information, it doesn't produce important paperwork, AND - it doesn't allow users to have access to past client records, which was the whole point of building it in the first place.
They told me that compared to the State system GINGER creates a more professional and complete record of our services, with greater efficiency in time and effort, and with a much more user-friendly interface than the one the State has paid $67 million dollars for.
My salary is $48 thousand a year.
I have no formal Access training. Much of what I learned of the technical aspects of Access I got from the generous experts who volunteer their time in this Forum answering questions.
But I got something else that was more important: All of your answers are steeped in a belief that there are ways to make the software work better for our users, and that creating a great application lies in devoting ourselves to meeting the users' needs.
For that, and more, I thank you all very much.
Sean O'Halloran, LGSW
Six years ago I picked up one of those 1500 page MS Access tomes, found Pat Hartman, The Doc Man, and many others here on this forum, then sat down for two weeks and laid down the foundation of a database ( "GINGER" ) that has been used by several hundred of my fellow social workers. It holds all the data relevant to creating professional risk assessments and other paperwork necessary for our work here in the Baltimore County, Maryland Dept. of Social Services.
It took me about 90 minutes to show a person how to use GINGER. Once a user had worked two cases with GINGER they were hooked - no one went back to using the MS Word templates floating around the office, which was the prior work process.
Five years ago the State of Maryland began building a database. It was intended to give social workers who protect children a tool to assess the risk of harm to children, document services we provide, track foster children, send relevant data to Washington, and (this was the big selling point!) share our records with other social workers who might work with those children and families in the future. We were told that the application, built with Powerbuilder by Deloitte and Touche, would save us social workers time and effort, speed up our services, create all our paperwork, and free us to spend more time with our clients.
Social workers from my agency are currently in training on the State system - 4 days of training to learn how to enter data - and several of them have come back weeping; others threatening to quit their jobs.
They said that the State system doesn't hold half the data we need, it is slow, complex, clumsy and confusing, it doesn't allow the user to correct entry errors in vital information, it doesn't produce important paperwork, AND - it doesn't allow users to have access to past client records, which was the whole point of building it in the first place.
They told me that compared to the State system GINGER creates a more professional and complete record of our services, with greater efficiency in time and effort, and with a much more user-friendly interface than the one the State has paid $67 million dollars for.
My salary is $48 thousand a year.
I have no formal Access training. Much of what I learned of the technical aspects of Access I got from the generous experts who volunteer their time in this Forum answering questions.
But I got something else that was more important: All of your answers are steeped in a belief that there are ways to make the software work better for our users, and that creating a great application lies in devoting ourselves to meeting the users' needs.
For that, and more, I thank you all very much.
Sean O'Halloran, LGSW
