Data Collection Strategies

[Guest]

I have finished the design of an Access data base. I will be collecting my
data from 13 offices around the country and wondering what approach to take.

Right now my plan is to export my data into Excel, email it to our field
offices, and copy and paste the updated data that is returned to me.

Can anyone recommend improvements to this process? I'd like to automate
things on my end while keeping the process as simple as possible for our
field offices. Their level of tech expertise is relativly low.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

You could simply create a data access page so that each of the 13 offices
could enter data. This may have the one big problem the all developers face
- once you have made your brand new DB and it is up and running, what is
there for you to do. I assume that your management have the ability to
collate data into reports ??

The excel method you mention would be best to keep your job but really the
wrong way to do a good job ?? MS office is designed to get rid of the need
to have people creating jobs just for the sake of it.

I know it's not what you want to hear but ??

 

[Dave G]

You don't mention if the users have to add or delete records or just
update them. I've had considerable experience in this area with foreign
subsidiaries and the most successful way I did it was to send the
remote offices .mde files where they could enter the information and
click on a button to create the extract to email back.

However, an improvement using the spreadsheet process might be to link
every office's spreadsheet on your PC to the main database with a
standard name, (different for each office), save the emailed
spreadsheets you get as the linked files and run queries to import the
data.

 

[dbahooker]

I would reccomend setting up an Access Data Project in each office and
using a real database engine for this.

I believe that you can use SQL 2005 Express edition at each of the
destination offices.. and then buy a single copy of SQL Server to
replicate from the central office

and then you'd just need to translate your MDB to an ADP file and you'd
be good to go.

-Aaron