Managing a Database using Word / IIS

[Aaron G]

I have a fairly ambitious client who would like to offload the management of
intranet content to other individuals in the organization. For the project
to be successful, the data management must be as painless as possible.
Accordingly, the ideal interface for data input is Microsoft Word, as most
users are extremely comfortable working with it.

I would like to be able to create word templates/forms which are dynamically
populated with data from an database, then downloaded to the client PC. Once
the data is updated, I would like the user to upload their files back to the
server, which will in turn update its database and maintain an audit-trail of
all changes.

Can this be done? I'm assuming that if I install Office on the server, it
would be feasible using the office API, but I would love to be able to do
this without office on the server..

any hints / suggestions would be HUGELY appreciated!

Thanks,

Aaron

 

[Alvin Bruney [MVP]]

what is the structure of the database? just text or excel type stuff? its
doable depending on what your answer is you may have more work to do. for
instance, if your database looks like excel data, then you can use the OWC
to move data from the database into the client side spreadsheet of the owc.
if your data resembles word -like you said, you will have to build custom
forms to hold the word content, just streaming the word files to the client
won't be enough because you would need some method of getting back the
changed data to the server. streaming with office files is currently a way
road.