Access Online

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Guest

How do I go about connecting an Access DB to a HTML webpage? I want to have
a webpage that pulls info from an Access DB posted on a server. eg. I want
to have the webpage update everytime the Access DB has been updated. Any
thoughts, comments will help.
 
Ainsworth...

You need a database driver for access, and some sort of programming
environment to generate the webpage on the server... keep in mind that
Access doesn't respond to IP/http requests directly (ie, you can link to
it over a workgroup, but not over an internet connection).

What kind of setup do you have on the server? Do you already have a
website that restricts what technologies you can use?

If you're on a Microsoft server, and aren't using an environment
already, you should check out .NET, it's probably the easiest thing to
setup and start with. Depending on how robust/how many people will be
accessing the server, Microsoft's beta release of Visual Web Developer
(http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vwd/default.aspx) works fairly
well at this point, and I think it even comes with a built in Access driver.

As with any new technology, it will take you a while to get used to the
..NET programming environment. Thankfully, just displaying data from a
database isn't too bad. I'd expect to take about a week figuring it out
(depending on your current tech savvy). In addition, it's still beta
technology, so I'm not sure how it performs under large loads and in
complex situations. Works fine for me for small to medium tasks.

Note that this is just one solution. There may be a way to use an Access
generated DAP (Data Access Page) to do what you want, but I don't use
them so am not familiar with them. Someone else may have a less drastic
solution that I am overlooking.

Good luck,
Luke
 
I just need a simple page that updates membership demographic info that I
will have saved in Access. I don't need anything elaborate, just a simple
way for others to access the updated info. What problems might come up if I
decide on using a DAP? Are there any issues with users not have Access on
their PC's?
 
Ainsworth,

I don't know anything about DAP. You need to be more specific about your
setup.

Is the server on a local network where everyone who needs to see the
demo data will have "linked table" access to it? Or is it something
remote that people access over IP?

If it's not local to everyone who needs to use it, then you've basically
asked the $64,000 question. People spend their whole lives developing
web pages that do what you're suggesting.

If it's local (like a local sharedrive accessible to everyone through
//share/database.mdb) then you have more freedom. If everyone has
access, you can just distribute a front end that links the back end
table and shows the data as a DAP or a regular, non-updateable form.

If the server is local, but you don't have access everywhere, then I
think you are stuck using a URL like:

http://localserver/showpage.htm (or in .NET showpage.aspx)

and is basically equivalent to having a remote server.

Luke
 
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