Version Updates

[ThickMike]

I am writing an application in Access 2000 which travelling employees will
load onto their laptops. As they do not have the Access program loaded, they
will use Runtime.

I anticipate that revisions will be needed over time. Updates might be
changes to forms & macros, new forms & macros, data changes, extra fields in
tables (must not overwrite existing data)

The employees are not techie people and applying an update must be as easy
and straightforward as possible.

Is there a standard way of coping with Updates to the program?

Would I be better off splitting the database into front and back ends?

 

[Lord Kelvan]

These people are they accessing the database over a network if so then
there should be no problem. If these people are each having a
different copy of the database then that sounds painful.

If the latter is what is happening then I would defiantly recommend
using a split database as updates may wreck data. Though saying that
you need to remember unless the file path where you save your dev back
end is the same as the path when they have their live back ends you
will experience problems.

As for the update process al they need to do is copy and overwrite the
file in the location where it was before.

Ie

C:\programfiles\mydatabase\mydatabasefront.mde
C:\programfiles\mydatabase\mydatabasebackend.mdb

They need to take the copy you send them and paste it there. So you
would email them a mydatabasefront.mde as for automating it you could
send them cds or usb flash drives and have a updateme app that copies
and pastes it automatically from there to the application path.

Though I have computer illiterate nurses working in my company that
can copy and paste from A to B even drag and drop they just need some
step by step instructions and a short lesson.

Hope this helps

Regards
Kelvan