Customer Service Tracker

[Jagman]

Our office is needing to move from tracking customer service issue with file
folders and notebooks to an electronic database. We handle everything based
on the order number. I would like to use Access as that database because of
its relationship to Outlook, Word and Excel. However, the templates on the
website are not geared for tracking "order numbers," nor do they have real
"comments" and "follow up" sections. Does anyone know where I might find
additional templates for tracking customer service issues?
Second, is it possible for Access to restrict other users from accessing a
particular order if someone else has already opened that order. (We would
want 5-7 users to have access to it (read and write) at the same time, but
not in a way that would create redundancy. Any ideas? Is Access even able
to do any of this well?
I am a faily new user to Access (though advanced user in Word, Excel and
Outlook). I am more than willing to learn new things, but I need some
guidance here. Thank you.

 

[Rick B]

When you click the NEW button in Access, there is a tab called "Databases".
I would think the "Order Entry" or the "Service Call Management" or the
"Order Entry" databases would get you started.

You will need to modify the templates to meet your specific needs. I'd hate
to try to change my business to work with a program. I prefer to change the
program to work with my business.

Rick B

 

[Scott McDaniel]

RE: 5-7 users accessing the same record at the same time.

Access can do this, but changes made by User1 will be overwritten by changes
made by User2 (assuming you don't run into conflict issue as discussed
below) ... IOW, Users can't "share" the same record at the same time. For
example, If I have Record123 open on my workstation, and you have the same
record open, then when I make changes, you wouldn't see them immediately on
your workstation (you'd have to "refresh" the record using any of several
methods). And, if you made changes (and didn't save them) and I made changes
(and DID save them), then when you attempted to save your changes you'd get
the exceedingly cryptic "You and another user changed this record blah blah"
message and have to decide how to resolve this ... should you overwrite MY
changes and do away with the work I just did, or should you instead review
my changes and make a decision based on that review ...

This can be worked around by adding a column to your table (eg: blnLocked)
and (a) setting this column = True when any user begins editing and (b)
Checking this value BEFORE a user attempts to save the record. This makes
coding more difficult, but it will help to solve the problems discussed
above.

I've written service call management systems, they're pretty tricky .. the
app isn't owned by me, so I can't let you see it but there are many factors
to consider if you want "realtime" system.