Working in shared db (2000)

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I just upgraded to 2000 and find that when someone else is in the db, I can’t make changes to forms, reports, etc. even if the other person is not using that form or report. Is there a way around this, or do I need to change my work hours?
Also, I miss being able to type a word in the Help search- it’s gone. Is there an alternative?

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Correct. If someone is using a database you can’t make changes to forms, reports, etc in that same database. The only way around it is to split the database into a separate front-end and back-end, and then work on your own copy of the front-end, copying it to the other users when you’re done. Making changes to forms and reports when someone else was in the database caused me major problems with corruption in A97 even when no one else was making any use of the forms/reports/etc that I was changing. I assume that’s why it’s no longer allowed.

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I can still type a word into Help. What do you get?

If you get the “office assistant” instead of what is shown below, look in its options and somewhere you can turn it off. (I can’t find out how to get it back again, so I can’t find the place to turn it off)

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Don’t turn off the answer wizard. There are all sorts of things you can’t find in the index.

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I was suggesting that the office assistant be turned off, not the answer wizard.

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At my age, I’m entitled to misunderstand occasionally!

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Dare I ask what age that is?
Pat

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Old enough to know better! (You *knew* I was going to answer that way, didn’t you? )

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The intrigue continues ….

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Yes – but . . . She isn’t as old as I am.

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Hah! You’ll *never* know!

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Hang on a minute, if W > C, then how does he know??

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Well, one of the advantages of a lot of time under your belt is that you end up with lots of intelligence sources

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Hi Judy – it’s been a while.
As others have pointed out, one of the major changes from 97 to 2000 was to require that you have exclusive access to a database before you change forms, reports, macros or code. A major inconvienence from our perspective, but it added considerable stability to production databases. We use to have to get everyone [80 people at one of our clients] out on a fairly regular basis to fix a problem, and that eventually lead us to (nearly always) deploy the front-end to the user’s workstation. Now we work away on a regular schedule, and when changes are ready to be deployed we simply have users exit their database and restart it and they automatically get the latest version. Check our web site for more details if you are interested.
As for Help, it’s more closely tied to the Office Assistant now, so you may want to use it to type search words – if not the Answer Wizard is useful.
Hope all is going well with your upgrade – you may also discover some issues with 2000 wanting to always upgrade your 97 back-ends – there are several threads on that topic in the forum.

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Hi, Wendell. Nice to see you are still here. Unfortunately, my IS folk will not allow front end/ back end databases. I just can’t convince them, period. Therefore I will have to shut everyone out when changes are needed. Bummer, but I at least understand why.
Our conversion has had numerous bumps, not the least of which has been oddities in Word and Excel once Access 2000 was implemented. We hope those will be resolved by upgrading some of us to 2000 Professional, but who knows? In the meantime I find myself perplexed by changed structure, and results which differ from ’97. I suspect I’ll be asking lots of questions now.
First and foremost is whether making graphs on reports based on table/query data is any easier in 2000? And why crosstab table headers which show perfectly in the report, disappear when exported to .rtf (they stay in snapshot)?
I’ll check your site out- thanks for the suggestion.
Judy

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What exactly do you mean by “any easier”? It’s pretty much the same in 2000 as it has been. Graphics and other things stay in snapshots but don’t translate into rtf. You’ll have to explain what you mean by crosstab table headings in the report.

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Hi, Charlotte,
I found graphs to be quite challenging in ’97 and am hoping it will be easier in 2000. We’ll see.
As far as the crosstab headings which disappear are concerned, I made a crosstab table in a report in ’97. The headers were placed at 45 degrees to allow for more columns. I could Save As under ’97 and still see the headers on the .rtf. The converted db in 2000 no longer shows the headers in .rtf, although they are still there as an Access report. Since I need to send the report to folks, I have had to switch from using .rtf to Word, and now am using snapshot (which also shows the column headings). However, not everyone had Snapshot installed – it’s a slow process.

Is there some known issue with 2000 which causes the text to not be available in .rtf?
Judy

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If the headers are on a graph, rather than on the report, the issue is with the graph. I don’t know of any way to set report headers at a 45 degree angle, and I have no idea what you mean by a crosstab table in a report, so I can’t be of much assistance.

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I do not have any graph on the page. I do show the results of a crosstab query, with set columns. The column headers are static, and do not generate from the query. I use the attached macro to tilt the text so I can fit more columns in.

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Ah. I’ve never wanted to tilt headings bad enough to wade through the umpteen API calls necessary to make it work.

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The code involved is quite resource intensive and actually creates a bit-mapped graphic that contains the rotated text, so I’m really surprised that it worked with RTF files in Access 97. In any event, there is a newer version of the ActiveX control that is available at http://www.lebans.com[/url%5D, though I wouldn’t expect it to solve your problem. As an alternative, I think Access 2000 will let you use vertical text (at least 2002 will).

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Then, to be blunt, I don’t think your IS folks have had to fix very many “broken” databases!

Have you addressed the issue with them that having a split database reduces the chance of catastrophic failures? I have run into exceptions, but in my experience most corrupt databases have the corruption in the forms, reports, code, etc., not in the data. Hence, splitting a database dramatically reduces the chance that a corrupt database will cause data loss.

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From everything I’ve read, I would agree that split -end dbs are preferable. My IS department is not knowlegable about databases, and does not really involve itself in software at all other than to dictate what/ which version. Nonetheless, I will keep working on them to understand.

I thank you all for your support as I struggle to learn more about Access and Visual Basic code.
Judy

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Just seconding what Douglas had to say about split databases. In addition to reducing corruption, if you put the front-end on each person’s PC, if their copy goes corrupt you can’t simply replace it, and you don’t have to kick everyone out of the front-end first. For more about why you want to split a database, see post 175910

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“We use to have to get
everyone [80 people at one of our clients] out on a fairly regular basis to fix a problem, and that eventually lead us to (nearly always) deploy the front-end to the
user’s workstation. Now we work away on a regular schedule, and when changes are ready to be deployed we simply have users exit their database and
restart it and they automatically get the latest version. Check our web site for more details if you are interested.”

Could you point us to this information? It would be most useful! Thanks for your great job, this site is always worth the time to read.
Thanks.

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Jan,

The text you quote is from a reply by WendellB. You can find his web site in his profile: http://www.access-experts.com[/url%5D. In particular, look at Products > DBLauncher.

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