How do I create a status board

[Guest]

Hi, I know my way around Access 2003 good enough to make some fairly simple
databases, reports, pivot charts, etc, but I'm not sure how to work on this
next project and am looking for some help.

I work in a military command center, and we have several dozen checklists
that we open and close constantly. What we would like to do is put together
a database that displays a status board listing all the open checklists
(probably using a data access page because not all computers will have
access), so that users on the network can quickly see what checklists are
open. The problem is that I don't know how to make it so that the data
access page refreshes the data constantly (maybe every 10 seconds or so), so
that someone can just leave the page open and it will keep itself current.
Otherwise, I think I know enough to manage to put this together, but I just
don't know how to force the status board to refresh automatically.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Guest]

Hi JC,

Well, it's not really an "Access" solution, but HTML has a 'meta-refresh'
tag you can use to refresh a web page every set number of seconds (or, more
accurately, reload the page in a browser automatically). You can read a
little about it here:

http://webdesign.about.com/od/metataglibraries/a/aa080300a.htm

HTML is pretty much old news, though I'm not current on what's the preferred
version these days. The last thing I had that met WCP standards was xhtml
(which wasn't much different than HTML 4.0(?). I suspect the meta-refresh is
still usable, regardless of what the current flavor of html.

Check it out. Soemone can probably give you a better answer, but there's
more than one way to skin a cat I guess (so my grandma use to tell me).

CW

 

[Guest]

That might work, though we don't really have access to a web server so I'll
have to put some thought into how to make that work. We don't have to use
access... it was just a thought that it might be the easiest way to do it
because it's easy to just stick a data access page out there on the network
and have everyone link to it. But otherwise that code is exactly along the
lines of what I'm looking for... just something simple to make things
auto-refresh.

 

[Guest]

I'm no ADP, XML or web expert; I leave that for others. If however I was
implementing this with an MDB and forms I would consider three approaches.

1. Timer
2. User Events
3. Dynamic Recordsets.

1. The question would be what object timer to use and the immediate thought
is the form's timer. Thus every interval the form interrogates the source
and updates itself if necessary. With many users this could result in
increased network traffic.

2. Define and raise user events when something changes at source. All forms
'listen' for these events and update themselves when something happens at
source.

3. Bind all forms to the same dynamic recordset. In ADO set the cursor type
to adOpenDynamic. (Don't know DAO equivalent.) Here's the MS help topic

"Uses a dynamic cursor. Additions, changes, and deletions by other users are
visible, and all types of movement through the Recordset are allowed, except
for bookmarks, if the provider doesn't support them."

Cursor location would have to be server side (I think).

Now whether any of the above are feasible for data pages I just don't know.

Hope this stimulates someone else to respond.

Rod