I have a question regarding a collection and reporting project we need to
develop. We are a small company with 20 offices. Each office operates on a
stand-alone program developed in Access 2K and has a high-speed internet
connection. We want to retrieve certain data from each store (about 10
tables in each store) and consolidate it for reporting and processing.
After processing, we want to send the data back to the store to update the
local database.

The question is, what is the best way of doing this? Our current thinking
is to set up Access on a server ("master") and use the Access sync
capability between the stores and the master database residing on the
server. The sync would only be with the applicable tables and stores. The
largest tables may have as many as 20K or so records. Most will have less.
In addition to the master server system, we would have another client Access
program that we would use to perform the changes to the records. This would
be a remote location also. These changes would then be synced with the
server, which would then be synced with the appropriate store.

For reporting we would provide Windows Terminal access to reports from the
master. Only a few people would need access to the reports, so there is no
need to develop them on the store systems.

Does this approach make sense? What other options should we consider
(outside of changing platforms)? What are the pitfalls?

Thanks much.

IC

I think it will be difficult for people to answer this question. This
is not a criticism, but, it's a bit like: "I want a car, I'd like a big
one, will a LandRover do?" Maybe - maybe not!

When you talk about the Access sync capability, do you mean
"replication"? If so, be warned, that is quite a complex feature. You'd
be well advised to post your question in
microsoft.public.access.replication.

Not sure why you're expecting an answer in
microsoft.public.access.activexcontrols. I doubt there is an ActiveX
control to do what you want!

HTH,
TC