Is Access the right app (newbie question)?

[Jennifer Carr]

Hello all,

I'm thinking of buying "Building Microsoft Access Applications" to help
bring about a solution we need at work. So I'm hoping you can answer a
couple of questions about Access to help steer me in the right direction.
-Our office needs a 'Request for Quote' program that accesses our over
33,000 products for our 200+ (and growing) customers.
-5-10 users would like to be able to use this at the same time pulling
from the same database.
-The primary impetus for this is to have a centralized database that we
all can search (w/o going to each-other's desks and rummaging through piles
of paper to find a certain Quote).
-We would like to be able to type in our numbering system and have other
fields auto-populate to corresponding description, size, model, etc.
-We would like to print reports on what parts we've quoted, who we've
quoted to, etc.
-Additionally, we would like to be able to print hard copies to fax to
those customers behind the technology curve so to speak (ideally, I'd like
it to look something like this template found on Microsoft's website
[http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010184641033.aspx?CategoryID=
CT011377071033}...any way to incorporate this into Access?)


I think that covers our most essential needs (indeed, what I described only
covers part of what I hope to accomplish). Will Access help me to
accomplish these goals. If not, any suggestions?

Thank for your time,
Chris Carr.

 

[Guest]

Access is indeed a perfect fit for your project. It is indeed a good sign
that you are not posting this question in an Excel forum...

Basics: you will need these tables (at least)

Products, containing ProductID (primary key), Size, Model, etc. fields
Customers, containing CustomerID (primary key), Address, etc. fields
Quotes, containing QuoteID (primary key), ProductID, CustomerID, pricing,
etc. fields
Users (probably, to record who makes/edits each quote)

You will need (at least) one form for building/managing each of these
tables, as well as some way of running reports.

One note: Access can get somewhat slow when running multiple users connected
to the central database across the network. For sure, you will want a
back-end Access database file (containing the tables/relationships) that sits
in a central location and a front-end database file that contains the forms
and programming - you can distribute a copy to each user & just link to the
back-end. You may at some point want to upsize it to an Access Project using
a SQL back-end to deal with the network latency issues.