Access or other tools?

[Lifeseeker]

Hi,

I am trying to decide which platform to use for the purpose of this work.

I need a data collection form built to collect data from hospitals.

Access may be able to get the job done, given that users have the same version of access installed and have access to the same LAN, which could be a problem. (there are different sites)


So if Access doesn't work really well for the purpose of this exercise, then what other tools out there am I looking at? SQL? PHP???. I have limited knowledge in on-line based database. It's really about the convenience factor. If sites don't share the same LAN, I think Access is not an option...

Could someone help me out?

Thank you for any comment/feedback

 

[plog]

How exactly is this process to work? Are hospitals uploading a file? Manually entering records one at a time. How much data will you be storing? Besides housing data, what does this system need to do? Will you be in charge of maintaining the hardware and operating software that this system runs on?

If your with an organization that has dedicated sysadmin I would suggest you start by asking him (or her) (ha ha, just kidding, him of course) what he suggests.

 

[Lifeseeker]

How exactly is this process to work? Are hospitals uploading a file? Manually entering records one at a time. How much data will you be storing? Besides housing data, what does this system need to do? Will you be in charge of maintaining the hardware and operating software that this system runs on?

If your with an organization that has dedicated sysadmin I would suggest you start by asking him (or her) (ha ha, just kidding, him of course) what he suggests.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Because I'm still at the early development stage, I have a Access version built, but as I tried to look into the future, I found myself asking those questions (i.e. who's gonna be the one keying in data down the road; will different sites use different LANs; how is the back-end protected and so on)

But what I can say for sure now is that.....it's not about the amount of records to be stored, but we are looking for a convenient, easy-to-use system that collects data on a monthly basis, if not weekly, to do some baseline analysis on the data. (so I'm thinking an on-line data collection form based on the back-end table stored on SQL server???)

So once the data are collected into either this Access database or some sort of online SQL server, we need to export the data into a different platform such as Excel to analyze the data. (i.e. calculating percentages, counting # of cases). Or if we can do all that in the database, it will be a bonus.


So for the purpose of this exercise, designing the database is easy as there is just only one big record table, and the different sites could be a drop-down look-up field.


So my initial feelings are that it's more about the convenience of the system. We were even talking about using a 3rd-party software to handle the data analysis part. So really we just need a system to collect and store data for now.

The primary concern is the fact that different sites may NOT share the same LAN. So if I am gonna house the back-end in location, that may be a problem.

 

[NigelShaw]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Because I'm still at the early development stage, I have a Access version built, but as I tried to look into the future, I found myself asking those questions (i.e. who's gonna be the one keying in data down the road; will different sites use different LANs; how is the back-end protected and so on)

But what I can say for sure now is that.....it's not about the amount of records to be stored, but we are looking for a convenient, easy-to-use system that collects data on a monthly basis, if not weekly, to do some baseline analysis on the data. (so I'm thinking an on-line data collection form based on the back-end table stored on SQL server???)

So once the data are collected into either this Access database or some sort of online SQL server, we need to export the data into a different platform such as Excel to analyze the data. (i.e. calculating percentages, counting # of cases). Or if we can do all that in the database, it will be a bonus.


So for the purpose of this exercise, designing the database is easy as there is just only one big record table, and the different sites could be a drop-down look-up field.


So my initial feelings are that it's more about the convenience of the system. We were even talking about using a 3rd-party software to handle the data analysis part. So really we just need a system to collect and store data for now.

The primary concern is the fact that different sites may NOT share the same LAN. So if I am gonna house the back-end in location, that may be a problem.

Hi

This could be done with access. What you need

Asp file in a localhost where the information is to be stored
The data can be sent and stored with strings for example-

Http://www.my server.com/ data.asp?field1=fielda,field2=fieldb etc

I can post a more detailed version later


Cheers


Niel