Web-Access (’97 and 2000)

Topic

New Reply

Hi all, new user here. I have a question (obviously). I am the new “owner” of two Access tools for healthcare. These databases calculate staffing needs, quality indicators, etc. We currently have about 30 clients in the state, which causes nightmares if there are problems (send me the file, I’ll fix it…or travel). We would like to expand our customer base, but do so without the “travel”…so we are thinking about a web-based application. I am pretty green…but can’t we simply have xxx databases in xxx folders that are accessible through the internet? For instance, we would could have San Diego hospital go to our web site, log in to “their” folder, and sitting in that folder we would have their database all customized for them only. They would double click the icon and it would open the Access database on their machines (all users need MS Access). They would enter thier data and exit. If there were problems, I would have it all locally on the server.

Am I dreaming? Pluses? Minuses? A better way? All comments encouraged!

Thanks much!

Reply | Quote

Replies

In theory (in the simplest sense) what you are suggesting should be capable of working, BUT . . . .
To do what you are suggesting would probably require the use of a VPN. You would also discover that performance is abysmal with Access running across an Internet connection. It can be fairly slow over a 10Mbit LAN, and the web is seldom better than 1Mbit, even for those of us that have T1 or T3 connections. In addition there is lots of latency in web connections in general.

There are some tricks you can play, but the bottom line is that Access isn’t good in that situations. The other alternative is to use a web interface to talk to the Access database. I actually host a web site in Ohio that uses an Access database to drive several of the pages, and am located in Colorado. The response in that situation is pretty good – dependent mostly on the load on the Web Hosting servers. However the user interface that you can create with web tools is nowhere as sophisticated as Access. Examples include the Tab control, subforms and reports and Active-X controls such as the TreeView.

The third alternative is something like Citrix, Win2K Remote Services or PC Anywhere. In that scenario, you do all of the processing locally and reflect it to a workstation which sends the screen paints and nothing else to the remote workstation. We’ve been able to make that work at speeds as slow as 144kbit ISDN, though it really isn’t acceptable using 56k dial-up. If you have Internet connectivity at both ends, you can use that pipe to make it work. The downside is licensing fees, and the need to have one or more dedicated workstations at the server end.

Hope this rambling gets some further discussion going for you.

Reply | Quote

I have successfully implemented a Web interface to my office Access database which gives me a pretty fast connection and quite good functionality using an ACTIVE SERVER PAGE application called TableEditor.
It’s free and easy to set up, though the person doing this needs ASP knowledge. You also need to set up IIS (Internet Information Services) to host your ASP website which you log into on the road. (unless you have an ISP who supports ASP and you can put your database there.) Setting up IIS for the unitiated is really a nightmare – though again simple, once you know how. You must apply the latest patches to IIS too for security reasons.
See:(TABLE EDITOR)
http://www.2enetworx.com/dev/index.asp%5B/url%5D
Also see:(for IIS SECURITY)
http://www.http://www.lokboxsoftware.com%5B/url%5D
Hope this is still relevant!

Reply | Quote