Internet Forms

[jonnygilmour]

Is there anyway that data entered into a database can complete a form automatically on the internet

 

[georgedwilkinson]

There are companies that sell products that do that, and yes, they do use a form of "database". One is called RoboForm, which is shareware.

 

[jonnygilmour]

I am in the process of making a farm management program. Births deaths etc are recorded in this program but if i could make it so that this program could automatically update the department of agriculture via a form on their website it would be good

 

[georgedwilkinson]

Cool. Sounds like fun.

A long time ago, I used Excel/Internet Explorer automation to fill in forms on gaming web sites (come to think of it, I used this for business web sites, too). Basically, you create an instance of a Internet Explorer window, send it to the web page in question, re-write the "internal" html to say what you want, and post it back via automation.

I was just looking through the objects available on this computer and couldn't find the IE automation object. If you can't find it, post back and I'll dig out one of my old computers along with the code I used to automate posting to forms (it'll take a while).

 

[jonnygilmour]

George please excuse my ignorance lol im a farmer with very limited access knowledge im currently sick and lik they day you can take de farmer out of the farm but youl never take de farm out of the farmer would this be a complicated procedure to perform because if it was i probably wouldnt bother about it

 

[georgedwilkinson]

Hmmm...I actually did a gig as a farmer. My family were tobacco farmers (yuck) when I was growing up. I was plowing fields at the ripe age of 6.

Are the values you need to input consistent? Or do they change from day to day? What is your reason for wanting to automate? Why can't you (or why don't you want to) just type it in to the gov'ment web site? Do you already have the data in an Access database? etc.?

 

[jonnygilmour]

The values i need to input are consistant. They only need to be recorded once eg on an animals birth its ID no, colour, breed, sex, and mothers ID no all have to be recorded. The reson for looking to update the government website through my database is that a hard copy has to be kept by the farmer as well as filling in the website so if i could make it so that filling in the database both made me a hard copy and filled in the website i would save alot of time.

 

[motleyjew]

I cuurently use a program by a company called iopus called Imacros to send data from my access database to a website and vice versa. In order to use it with a database you would need the scripting edition. Here is the website for the product. They have some examples tutorials on the site as well. http://iopus.com/imacros/web-scripting.htm

Gregg

 

[jonnygilmour]

Thanks but to be honest i was hoping to do it without spending that much money as similar software can be purchased for less money

 

[georgedwilkinson]

Thanks but to be honest i was hoping to do it without spending that much money as similar software can be purchased for less money

Access is kinda like anything in life: you can either pay to get what you want or you have to put in sweat equity to make what you want (or some combination). I guess you could also beg, borrow, or steal to get what you want, which would fall under the sweat equity category. Which path were you wanting to take here?

 

[jonnygilmour]

I was hoping there would be a function in access to allow me to do this but if there isnt then i supose i will just have to do without it

 

[Banana]

Jonny, the basic issue is this:

A computer has to be babystepped through everything- it is not instrinically 'aware' of what you want to do with your data until you tell it what to do with it first.

So, for auto-completing a form on website, it would have to know where to put the cursor, and insert in appropriate data, among other things. This is also why other suggested a product because they already automate what you would have to write yourself.

I would imagine it'd be actually easier to just save the webpage after you've filled it out yourself, print it out and file it in your cabinet. But if you really want an electronic record, you will need to decide if you want to learn some programming to move cursor around, inserting text automagically, or just buy a software to do this for you.

There may be free software if you look hard enough, though. I've yet to meet a shareware I wished I had.