Lol, well you just turned a simple general question into something much more complex. I was just looking for a suggestion or two. But if you really want it, here we go:
It would seem that the data base may not be critical to the operation/viability of your organization. What happens if you had an accident now that kept you from work for a period of time? ...Why has no one else been involved to date?
Trust me, it is critical now that it has been implemented. We are just incredibly short staffed and we're all focused on so many things so I'm the only one focused on this particular project. I'm not IT or administrative. I am an environmental educator at a small zoo who just so happens to be good with computers. I knew nothing about Access and have been learning everything from the ground up for the past 2 years in order to create the database, in between my normal duties of facilitating education programs, booking events, and designing lesson plans.
Tell us more of the organization and its approach to documentation, training, survivability.
The database is to manage our educational programs. When a client calls to request a program, we enter their information (or pull it up if they are already in the database), create an entry for the program and enter the appropriate information. After booking, the database helps us track and record income, programs, number of participants and a lot of other detailed information. This information allows us to better track our performance, make booking return clients easier and gives us a lot more information that we can use to better target and serve our client base and to apply for grants.
Who was involved in identifying a need for the database? Who participated in the design and acceptance of the design? Who did the testing?
I was the person to come up with the initial idea (before we simply had physical invoices for each individual program and a spreadsheet for income and participants), and to create the database. I had limited input from the others regarding the purpose, abilities and what information should be reported.
I instructed the other education staff member in how to book and update programs and to print out the reports, but I've been the only one to do the behind-the-scenes, coding, management and testing. She told me if she found any bugs and I fixed them.
Did anyone create an operations manual or training materials (video/powerpoint...)?
I admit that I should of been more diligent about documenting from the beginning but, like I said, I was stretched thin as it is. I am currently working on instructions for how to update the behind the scenes stuff. It's just going to be a word document; I don't have time to dedicate to video/slideshow, etc. And that's where I started this thread.
I have also left a "Access for Dummies" book, will leave them access to this account and I am creating ways to simplify updates. For example, instead of using value lists for combo boxes, I created a table that includes those values and which can be more easily changed.
I was hoping to spare everyone all of those details. I was just looking for some ideas, not a full blown plan of action. But if, after learning all of those details, you have some more specific ideas, I'd love to hear them! Thanks!
