Interface with Mobile Phones (1 Viewer)

[DCrake]

I have been approached by a prospective client to write an application for them, fully bespoke, nothing special or out of the ordinary, however one of the comments they made was that they wanted to know if they could communicate with mobile phones?

Essentially, nurses will be doing home visits and they wanted to be able to clock on and off using their mobile phones. I would assume this would involve using blackberries?

Has anyone ever come across this type of request before? and if so, can you enlighten me about the technology requirements.

 

[vbaInet]

Not had to do it with Access but perhaps you can use something like a Sharepoint site using Access 2010? Nurses can have access to the local forms but also have access to the web forms hosted on the site.

 

[DCrake]

Ulitmately the app is going to be in VB, but the technology should be the same as per Access.

 

[vbaInet]

The two main issues here are log-in procedures (w.r.t security) and interfacing with your backend via the web. So from what I've heard about Access 2010 and Sharepoint, it would suffice since (I think) it provides those two features.

If you go down the PHP or ASP route, then you will be thinking about building a "full" website and would have to deal with those two issues yourself.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

I looked at this recently.

from memory, there are modules out there in VBA - but you either need a modem linked to a dial up phone line (and presumably a contract with someone to send them) , or you need to use a paid for broadband SMS sending service.

 

[DCrake]

This is exactly what I thought. It apears that the option would cost more than the application. So a none starter.

Cheers

 

[vbaInet]

Packets can get lost in transmission and older Access versions aren't really built to handle that. I would imagine this has been considered in the Access 2010 build though.