Web-it

[Dan @BCBS]

Very general question but I'm sure it's been coming up more and more....
My department develops and maintains many Access databases 99% are linked to
SQL databases.

As new applications role out in our corporation the need to be web based
(intranet) is getting almost mandatory.

I had hopped that Access 2002 functionality, to convert 2000 applications to
front end web input, would be incorporated into the release.

So, for the sake of saving a lot of jobs that depend on their skills in
these MS Access databases and those who develop them, could you share some
direction?

What I need to know is: if you had an Access 2000 database and was told all
databases need to allow the user to input from an intranet page, what would
you do??? In addition to your comments, if you can suggest any study
material and training that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Albert D.Kallal]

In a nutshell, access is not a web based tool, and thus really is a non
issue.

If you need a web based system, you don't use ms-access.

And, if you need a CAD engineering system, you also don't use ms-access.

It is a question of the right horse for the right course. You can't develop
web based applications with VB6, or FoxPro, or dbase IV either.

So, as far as direction goes, there is really not much more to say then that
ms-access is not a web based tool.

You can certainly deploy and use ms-access OVER the internet. So, a salesman
on the road can connect to the internet, and use the ms-access application.
However, remote access is COMPLETE different then building a web based
application.

So, ms-access is not a web based development tool. So, for a suggestion in a
direction, you simply need to choose <insert your favorite web development
tool here> and start building the application you want. Today, the HOT
development system for web stuff is asp.net.

You can build some forms and data enter screens with FrontPage,but, if you
are talking about an actual application, then the .net tools are the way to
go.

As for remote use of ms-access, you can read the following article of mine:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal//Wan/Wans.html

The above even suggests that you can use ms-access OVER the internet to sql
server. However, the best suggestion in the above for deploying ms-access to
be used anywhere, anytime is of course the remote technology mentioned in
the article. You can even use those technologies through a web browser, and
thus not even have to install ms-access on the target machines(s).

 

[Danny J. Lesandrini]

Dan:

There is some question about whether or not this is a good practice, but you can create
ASP pages to view, add and edit data in an Access mdb from the web. I've written a
couple of articles for DBJ and they come with code downloads that might help. There's
also several commercial products out there for creating ASP pages for Access tables,
but off the top of my head, I can't remember their names.

http://www.databasejournal.com/features/msaccess/article.php/3487741
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/msaccess/article.php/3613386
http://amazecreations.com/showmethetable/ShowMeTheTable.asp

The problem is consistency. If multiple users edit the same row at the same time, one
of them lose their changes. If users seldom work on the same data at the same time,
then it's just a question of performance. You won't want to return thousands of rows
at a time (it takes forever to create the web page) and you won't have the ease of data
validation from web controls, unless you write good client side code. What I show in
these articles is simple and not terribly robust, but for some applications, it's enough.