importing and exporting tables for a local db (1 Viewer)

[munkeyroot]

Hi Everyone
just want to say to the people who have helped me out in the past ....THANK YOU.

ok so for my next challenge, has anyone attempted this before.
my DB is on our server, so users can login and use.
However my boss is wanting to take it on the road with him. while i am going down the web route for the future, i am looking into my boss having a copy Local DB on his laptop doing some work then when he gets back to site updating the main DB.

i know that their could be an issue with the PK on the tables over lapping or deleting one used etc.?

any thoughts guys?

cheers munk

 

[Minty]

This can be very complicated or pretty simple - it really depends on your data model, and how many referential linked tables you have?

For example - you have a sales order with sales lines. This is linked back to an account number. If your boss added a customer (new account number) and a related sales order, and someone else did the same back at server level you would have a large mess on your hands to attempt to tidy up.

Imagine if both the customers remembered their account number, and placed an order just using that. Who gets the order ?

World of pain.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Updating two copies of the same database is problematic and there is no good solution. Access used to support Replication but MS dropped that with A20007. If you need to support replication, you can switch the BE to SQL Server. Then when the Boss gets back, you can reconcile the two copies. However, this is not without problems and humans need to resolve conflicts of which there are many.

If the boss only needs to add new records - clients, orders, etc, You can give him an empty BE to take on the road and when he gets back, you can run a procedure that adds the data from his BE to the shared BE.

If he needs to be able to update existing data, then nothing works except using Citrix or Remote Desktop. Both of these options allow web page access to a "desktop" back home on your LAN so that he can use a copy of your app that is linked directly to the shared BE (whether it is Jet/ACE, SQL Server, or anything else). Both of these options run the database on the LAN server and so are not adversely impacted by the relative slowness of the web compared to a LAN. Rather than transporting data over the wire, the host side of the app simply sends pictures of the desktop and the client side just sends keystrokes and mouse clicks. Frequently in situations where you have both local LAN users and remote Citrix users, the Citrix users report better performance than the local LAN users because there is no latency involved. Everything is happening on a single PC whereas on the LAN, you are running the Access app on your computer and getting data from a computer somewhere else on the LAN.

 

[munkeyroot]

Hey guys
apologies i have only just come back to you all. have been away for a few weeks.

thanks for the information guys, just as i though world of pain!!!

Munk