How to Call Attention to Form from Other Programs?

[barelyelite]

I'm an amateur when it comes to Access and VBA but good enough that the people I work with think I'm an expert. I can usually do what I'm asked to create by lurking the forums and modifying code as needed. But I'm stumped here.

I've found and modified code that uses my DB's "switchboard" form's timer event to detect inactivity. After 60 minutes of inactivity, another form--frmCountdown--loads, which visually counts down 60 seconds for the user to see. It has two buttons--one to close the countdown form and reset the inactivity timer and one to quit the application. After 60 seconds, of course, the application automatically closes. This all works fine.

However, I've gotten comments from users that they are given no indication that the countdown form has opened. I have it set to beep when it opens and every 5 seconds thereafter, but many people have their speakers off. What I'd like to to is have Access "flash" the Windows taskbar orange, or, if that's not possible, call the countdown form to the foreground. Since the users are inactive, the focus is probably not on Access, so the form would need to show up on top of all programs. I've tried to implement some code I found that calls the API, but that hasn't work, and it's beyond my capacity to understand.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

 

[SpentGeezer]

yOU COULD MAKE THE COUNTDOWN FORM GO FULL SCREEN (TAKE OVER THE SCREEN).

Set the following on the form properties (see attachment). [Popup and menu bar = 1 are important]

Then OnOpen
Docmd.maximize

This will cause the form to popup over all other applications.