Advice Please - Access on the Web?

Tezcatlipoca

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Hola,

This is just - hopefully - a quick and simple question, but can anybody advise me of Access' capabilities when it comes to being connected to the web, or, even better, when linking tables to an SQL database stored on the web?

Basically, I've been asked by work to look into the possibility of writing a little call logging database for their helpline. In straight Access and VB, this is easy and well within my experience, but, and here's the sticking point, they want people in two separate offices to all be able to access it at the same time.

I'm not entirely sure what to even start writing this database in, but my thinking was setting up an online SQL database to hold the actual info, and giving both offices Access front ends that connect to this database.

If anyone can please advise me further, or can think of a better way to achieve this, I'd be extremely grateful.
 
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Are the 2 offices on the same network? Do they have a shared drive that you can put the files on? Do they have a terminal services system (citrix for example)?
If you answer yes to any of these questions then you should be able to do something, if all three are no then you are going to struggle with using access for this!!
 
You've precisely hit the crux of my problem. One office is on an SBS server and network, but the other is a small satellite office which has a small simple network and each machine has direct access to the internet.

There are no shared drives, resources, or services whatever. If there were, I could have easily solved this issue without the need for posting the thread!
 
You can link an Access front end to a SQL Server database over the web but don't expect the speedy performance you would get if the two were on the same network. The web is significantly slower than internal networks.
 
I know you can link to a SQL Server database directly from the web, but I haven't used that setup. As Pat mentioned, I would expect slower performance. I do have outlying offices that connect to the main network via VPN and run Access FE/SQL Server BE databases, and the performance is pretty good. I did design those applications with the remote access in mind, which means minimizing the data that has to go over the wire. They do run slower than they do on the main network, but you have to be paying attention to notice it; it is not significant.
 
I know you can link to a SQL Server database directly from the web, but I haven't used that setup. As Pat mentioned, I would expect slower performance. I do have outlying offices that connect to the main network via VPN and run Access FE/SQL Server BE databases, and the performance is pretty good. I did design those applications with the remote access in mind, which means minimizing the data that has to go over the wire. They do run slower than they do on the main network, but you have to be paying attention to notice it; it is not significant.

Hmmm...this is my preference as well, to be honest. Basically, they were originally asking for something web-based, but web-based databases aren't especially powerful in terms of the features you can write into them. With Access and VB I can easily deal with all the features being asked for; it was just the two office problem that was causing an issue.

Thanks for your advice; I'm definitely leaning towards this option.
 
Basically, they were originally asking for something web-based, but web-based databases aren't especially powerful in terms of the features you can write into them.

You could also look into using a smart client front end. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_client
This has the benefit of providing communication over HTTP whilst giving the developer desktop application (fat client) functionality.
We have developed a couple of these and they went very well!!

Apologies for the basic questions before but posters on this forum have differing levels of experience and expertise, you have to make sure you don't over specify a solution.
 

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