Question Does Access 2007 have any Workflow tool capabilitites? (1 Viewer)

[atol]

Does Access 2007 have any Workflow tool capabilities?

Hello and Happy New Year!
I will greatly appreciate if anyone can let me know if Access2007 has some cababilities of worflow tool? I work on a project, and would like to use at this point Access to aggregate data for some control metrics, however also to alert people for their respective risk items they need to review. At the same time I would like to build some sort of reviewer and approver mechanism so I can have dual signoff process.
And if you could recommend any literature/source on the topic i will be greatly appreciative. I did some research however did not have too much luck finding good info.

Not sure if it make sense what I am asking, but if you need more info please let me know.


Regards,
Atol

 

[spikepl]

There is a plethora of project management tools on the web, some free, some not so dear, and some very expensive. There also is Google, with google docs, and google sites, where a whole project website than can be set up in two minutes, incl some rudimentary risk logging, issue management etc.. Or zoho.com, where you can set up some web-accessible db ..... etc etc.

I would recommend you start thinking in terms of the functionality you need first, and specific tools (like Access, which in this context is a set of very very small building bricks) second.

The point is, that to develop something yourself you better have some justification for reinventing the wheel, and also funding and time, because development, maintenance and support are expensive.

Access has no built in work-flow other than you what create yourself. It can interface with Excel/ Outlook fairly easily (but various project tools made in Outlook also exist out there).

 

[atol]

thanks a lot... good suggestions. i will definitelly explore options.

 

[Lightwave]

I would go with everything that Spike has said.

I would also add that I have used it for project management before. To a certain extent I've used it for every "project" I've ever done from highly technical non personal projects of getting thousands of times in on an athletics races that are constantly repeating to stock control to managing people to organise an international athletics race to booking people on courses at an outdoor centre.

Access as a database is like any other. In its raw state is simply a blank sheet that can be used to write anything. The only limitation is usually the ability of the user.

There was a lad in here that wrote an access database that plays a game of chess. That's how flexible it is. All project management software is based on databases. Pretty much everything you use has a database somewhere.

What I would say to you is that if you don't have much experience start small. If you have no idea how to get access to solve your big problems. Break your ideas down into sections and see if Access can solve any of the individual sections for you. Once you have solved those sections it is very likely that your improved knowledge will give you ideas on how it can help resolve bigger problems.

Ok from what you have said you have a set of tasks you might want to see if in the first instance you can set up a sortable list of tasks that you can share with the people that you wish to authorize those tasks. So for instance when they have completed their task they indicate that it is complete and when you review the database you can immediately see that.

I haven't used many of the graphing items in 2007 but sortable lists can be very useful in this respect.

If you're immediately thinking of getting head up displays and fancy pie charts I would look to purchased software

 

[Lightwave]

Here's a link to a "Project Management Database" that may give you some ideas... but doesn't look like what you want I'm afraid

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/templates/project-management-database-TC001225351.aspx

 

[atol]

what you guys are sayig here makes a lot of sense. That's why i have been coming to this forum - to learn from pros and people with experience like you guys.
Thanks again.