Reverse Engineer Access DB

[Derek]

I have reverse engineered an access db that is currently in disarray into a
Visio drawing. It seems that it is possible to synchronize the drawing and
db by linking them so that I can make changes to tables in the drawing and
have them affect the db. Is this correct? If it is, any idea why I get an
error that says "the current shape does not contain a valid record key
value". I am new to Visio, but have used db modelling software in the past.
I have searched through all of the help and haven't found anything that does.

 

[Al Edlund]

reverse engineering a database is the process of extracting a database
structure, the reverse of forward engineering is that of updating the
database structure. forward enineering is only available in the enterprise
version of visio. what version of visio are you using....
al

 

[Derek]

I am using Visio 2003 Pro, not the enterprise version.
Thanks Al, I did read that somewhere, but in the help of Visio Pro, it
mentions two way synchronization between the drawing and database. It is
very unclear in the help as to whether or not forward engineering is
possible. Because of this, I have been trying to figure out if "updating" of
the schema is possible in the version I have, since the drawing is based on
an actual db schema. Does that make any sense?

 

[Al Edlund]

the updating of objects in a database is based on the information in the
shapes (typically created/managed using the database wizard). the pro
version does not know how to create the necessary ddl to update a database
schema.
al

 

[Derek]

So, to be absolutely certain, there is no way for me to model the db in Visio
Pro and create the db in access automatically? I would be able to do this in
Visio enterprise edition though?
Thanks for your help Al, I really appreciate it. I spent a great deal of
time being thoroughly confused by Visio help yesterday.

 

[Al Edlund]

this is a little dated but with the exception of VENT which was discontinued
it's pretty close.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;301970
al