Question Ideas - Submitting Incidents

[Zorkmid]

Hi all,

I'm looking for ideas on how to corrdinate follow-ups for incident reports. What we have here now is a paper based incident report that gets sent to me with investigation notes attached to it. I input a summary of each one and use records to push-out data.

Due to legal obligations, we have to separate the facts of the incident from the investigation and follow-up. I'd like to keep the paper form for employees to fill out, but provide a template (perhaps in outlook) that allows investigators to summarize the incident and forward it along.

Questions:
1. Is there a way in outlook 2003 to create a template with some questions that have to be answered (date boxes, combo boxes, free txt)

2. Is there a way to standardize the recipients of the mail message

3. Is there a way to protect the contents of the email message.



Can anyone think of another route to go to?


P.S. I'm not looking to get too complex, but NEED something for the interim. In the near future I will have a 3rd party software package that will totally overhaul the policy and process for reporting.



-Id love to hear your answer and input.

-Thanks, Matt

 

[Access_guy49]

Outlook is an email client, if you want a template, Create a distribution list in outlook, and send a word attachment to all recipients. Get them to fill out out and return as attachment.

I fail to see how this is a database related question. (Should probably make myself clear, not trying to be facetious, I just don't see the need for an access database in this instance, not to mention the extra time and consideration it would take when the system will be redone soon anyways)

 

[Zorkmid]

It isn't really, was thinking there might be easy way of tracking who logs into my database and records which chnages they make.

 

[Access_guy49]

I think that's probably more SQL and web based.
You can create web based applications using Access, but i think to track changes (and i could be wrong here) it would be a very complicated manner, one that probably wouldn't be justified for "interm" solutions.

 

[Zorkmid]

Agreed, anything web-based is too complex. IT dept wont give me any server space to play with.

 

[Access_guy49]

Multiple people can change a given Report?

 

[Zorkmid]

Yes. It is set up so that I and other consultants can add or edit records. I don't track the changes because there is only a small number of us, and there are controls to prevent accidental deletion etc.

 

[Access_guy49]

Questions:
1. Is there a way in outlook 2003 to create a template with some questions that have to be answered (date boxes, combo boxes, free txt)

2. Is there a way to standardize the recipients of the mail message

3. Is there a way to protect the contents of the email message.

If you are Sending this out to people which is the impression i'm getting from the above comment, how do you manage conflict? I.E Person 1 fills in column 1 with the response "Blue" and Person 2 fills in column 1 with Response "Red"??

 

[Zorkmid]

Only one person would answer the questions in the template. Any additional comments might be made by another person, but it would be a separate email and easy to ID who said what.

Much simpler to see who wrote what where in outlook vs access.

 

[Access_guy49]

OK well the way i see it is this:

An access database could be created to track your progress on a given report.

There would be a table that holds all the facts of the case, Another table with a one to many relationship that holds one or many investigation summaries.

One record would have either one or many investigations attached to it.

From there you could also add a one to many table for follow ups or even one for correspondance...(not sure of your exact needs)

This would allow you to quickly view a record and see the notes associated with it.
The only problem i can still see is that you would still need to send out a Word or Excel doc to your investigators.
As a side note, Excel might be a nice option because if it is set up in a standard format you could import the data into an "investigation record" in your database which would minimize the amount of manual input you would have to do.

 

[Access_guy49]

For our planners here at my office I have created a database that creates a Folder related to a given record...
Every time a new record is created, a new folder on the computer is created and a hyperlink right in my database is created. on the form they have basic information. If they wish to save email messages or documents pertaining to the file they store them in that given folder, that way when the search for a record in the database they can see the summary, or quickly click on the link to open up the folder containing all the original emails and word documents... this might be an option for you as well. (works for scanned documents as well)

 

[Access_guy49]

As Per discussed in our PM's I have created a small example database of what i was discussing in my previous posts.