Newbie help - Building a database for a company library

[johnroche]

hello,

recently my boss decided I needed I didnt have enough work to do, so he decided to request that I build something that will store information, in an easily searchable, and equally easy to add entries format. I, using my vast knowledge of MS Access (NONE) am apparantly the best person to do this job, for our company of only 12 people, and a total of 6 computers.

Anyways, I havent got a clue where to start. I hope for the finished product to end up like this:

Search page (via internet explorer): a simple page which you type in a word, or two, and will search various fields of data, and bring up the results in a linkable page, containing document information, and a link to access the document on our server

Addition Page (via IE): a page which contains the various fields i need, some data being directly typed, and some selected from a pull down. Finally a field that allows the user to browse the server, and select a document, such that when entered a clickable hyperlink will exist to this document, upon clicking (in the page returned from the search) will open the document for the user to read-only.


So, basically, I dont know PHP, coldfusion, ASP, meta-somethings... i dont even know what they mean. Is it possible for me to pull something like this off in Access, and if so... can anybody direct me to a place where I can learn how?


thanks soooo much, if nothing comes up.... i guess the boss will have to find his documents the old way... remember where he put them on the hard drive, and open them up that way

-john

 

[louchey]

Well this forum is a perfect tool if you search the archives for problems you run into along the way. Access will definately cope with what you are trying to achieve. Getting yourself a good Access "Bible" would be the best you could do as it will help to teach you some do's and dont's of database writting. Don't know any titles off the top of my head, but I'm sure if you have a look through the archives, people have posted numerous recommendations.

 

[Autoeng]

In Access you can use Data Access Pages (DAP's) which allow you to enter, search and retrieve data from an Access database via IE webpages. However, Microsoft has never done much in terms of support and documentation for DAP's and I feel that unless you are regulated to using an IE interface that you would be much better served using regular Access forms. There was a not to past thread where a person was using Access as a dictionary. Here is the link... http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48119&highlight=dictionary

I'm sure that you will get some ideas there.