database updating (1 Viewer)

[reptar]

Hi, i work for a company which uses a database within the office. At the moment there are roughly 10 users and i have set it up with a back end and front end. My question is that one of the staff members would like to use the database at home and away from the office. Is there some way of emailing updates from the home computer to the office which can then be uploaded into the database thus applying any updated changes? I dont really want to place the database online as this will incur alot of work due to the complexity of the database tables/forms.

Thanks,

 

[Pat Hartman]

You can use replication which is also a lot of work to implement. I would suggest Terminal Services or Citrix as a solution.

 

[James Dudden]

A cheaper route than terminal services is to use Windows remote desktop or LogMeIn. Go to www.logmein.co.uk and sign up for a free account.

Our company uses this when we work from home - the only thing you need is the person to have his computer switched on at work.

Hope this helps

 

[dfenton]

For the laptop user who is regularly in the office and needs to work with the data offsite, Jet replication is an excellent solution. In that scenario, you can use the easiest form of replication, Jet replication. You can put a command button on a form in the front end that would run this code:

  Dim dbLaptopReplica as DAO.Database
  Dim strLaptopReplica As String

  strLaptopReplica = CurrentDB.TableDefs("MyTable").Connect
  Set dbLaptopReplica = DBEngine.OpenDatabase(Mid(strLaptopReplica, 11))

  dbLaptopReplica.Synchronize "[path to LAN replica]"

  dbLaptopReplica.Close
  Set dbLaptopReplica = Nothing

This doesn't check for conflicts, but instructions for that can be found in question 8 in the FAQ of my Jet Replication Wiki:

http://dfenton.com/DFA/Replication/index.php?title=FAQ

Your scenario is ideal for this setup as the user is going to be coming back to the office and connecting to the wired LAN (if it's a WIRELESS LAN, then all bets are off, as wireless is not reliable enough for use with Access).