I'm after a bit of advice.
I took a stand alone system and amended it to meet the new requirements of the user. We'll call him user 1. It's a fairly simple database. The system keeps track of merchandise at various clients, how much they have sold and what stock levels are. It was designed for the use of 1 person in 1 area and works well. The user then took on a salesperson who had the same database set up with local data for his area. We'll call him user 2. Now user 1 doesn't want user 2 to see all of the reports. This is not a problem. User 1 also wanted to 'see' user 2's data. User 1 obviously wanted a cheap and cheerful solution. This was achieved by user 2 emailing the database to user 1. This is then copied to a specific location (using VBS) and user 1's front end effectively looks at 2 back ends (his own data and also user 2's). Queries had to be changed to pick up all the data but all in all this works well. The only problem I have is that it's not exactly scaleable. User 1 told me that he wasn't going to increase his sales force. Up until now he hasn't, but....
He is joining forces with someone running a similar operation. They want to use user 1's exiting software and all of it's functionality. He has 5+ users. He also has a proper office and a network!
So finally here comes the question. What's the easiest thing to do to keep the functionality without rewriting it all?
1. Keep it as it is and get all 5+ users to email their DBs to the main user and copy to specific location. I don't think this is viable. If main user expands with more staff then queries/forms will have to be amended.
2. Get users to email their DBs for the particular area they work in but instead of using this as a separate backend copy (after deleting) all of the areas data back into the 1 database. This may have problems if the key is autonum (which I'm sure it is) although I guess that this could be changed.
3. Stick the backend on the server and access remotely somehow! I've read that this fraught with problems but also read that it's not. If each user can only access his own area's data then there should be no record locking problems.
4. Stick it on the web - but I guess that's a problem to someone (ie me) that has no idea where to start with this.
5. Anything else?
I'm thinking 3 is the way forward. Each user has a laptop and can remote desktop into the server , run his front end on his laptop and update the database on the server.
Any thoughts?
I took a stand alone system and amended it to meet the new requirements of the user. We'll call him user 1. It's a fairly simple database. The system keeps track of merchandise at various clients, how much they have sold and what stock levels are. It was designed for the use of 1 person in 1 area and works well. The user then took on a salesperson who had the same database set up with local data for his area. We'll call him user 2. Now user 1 doesn't want user 2 to see all of the reports. This is not a problem. User 1 also wanted to 'see' user 2's data. User 1 obviously wanted a cheap and cheerful solution. This was achieved by user 2 emailing the database to user 1. This is then copied to a specific location (using VBS) and user 1's front end effectively looks at 2 back ends (his own data and also user 2's). Queries had to be changed to pick up all the data but all in all this works well. The only problem I have is that it's not exactly scaleable. User 1 told me that he wasn't going to increase his sales force. Up until now he hasn't, but....
He is joining forces with someone running a similar operation. They want to use user 1's exiting software and all of it's functionality. He has 5+ users. He also has a proper office and a network!
So finally here comes the question. What's the easiest thing to do to keep the functionality without rewriting it all?
1. Keep it as it is and get all 5+ users to email their DBs to the main user and copy to specific location. I don't think this is viable. If main user expands with more staff then queries/forms will have to be amended.
2. Get users to email their DBs for the particular area they work in but instead of using this as a separate backend copy (after deleting) all of the areas data back into the 1 database. This may have problems if the key is autonum (which I'm sure it is) although I guess that this could be changed.
3. Stick the backend on the server and access remotely somehow! I've read that this fraught with problems but also read that it's not. If each user can only access his own area's data then there should be no record locking problems.
4. Stick it on the web - but I guess that's a problem to someone (ie me) that has no idea where to start with this.
5. Anything else?
I'm thinking 3 is the way forward. Each user has a laptop and can remote desktop into the server , run his front end on his laptop and update the database on the server.
Any thoughts?