Pass-the-reality said:
We have an Access database that we use for a call center. Periodically I
need to notify the team if something is urgent. Since the team always has
the Access database up, I wanted to see if we can add code to the database
that will allow us to generate a pop up box alert. Please let me know if
this is an option. Thanks!
Here's a rough outline of how you might do this.
You could have an Alerts table in the shared back-end database with fields
for AlertID (autonumber PK), Message (text), DisplayAfter (date/time), and
maybe ExpireDate (date/time, optional). In each user's copy of the
front-end you would have a table of AlertsDisplayed, with fields AlertID
(long integer, FK to Alerts) in which would you would record the fact that
this particular front-end has displayed a given alert. You could use a
Timer event on a form that is always open (maybe hidden, unless you have
some form already that is always kept open), and in that Timer event check
to see if there is a record in the Alerts table that is not represented in
the AlertsDisplayed table, and where DisplayAfter <= Now() and ExpireDate >
Now(). For each such record, open an Alert form in dialog mode to display
the message. When the user closes the form, write a record into
AlertsDisplayed to indicate that that alert has been displayed to this user.
Thus, the alert would not be shown again to that user.
