Password Protected Forms

[jcbhydro]

Good Afternoon,

I have had much valuable advice from many Forum members in building a very comprehensive Membership Management Database with extremely useful facilities initiated by some 20 or 25 Queries..
The database includes 5 Tables which store data relevant to members, another which stores details of Interest Groups and a 3rd which stores which members are affiliated to which Group or Groups.
Currently the database is accessible only by a very limited number of persons and data can be entered/edited by only one person. The database, using Access 2010, is maintained on a desktop computer and synchronized to a copy on a Cloud.
I am hoping that someone can give me some advice on the principle of my proposal.
My requirement is to permit some 50 Group Leaders to input/edit data on a Password protected Group Members Form such that that is the only element of the database that they can access. The Forms would have only 2 fields from which the user would select entries from drop down lists.

My query is ; is such a procedure feasible in principle and would I be correct in assuming that the user would require to have available a copy of Access.

Any comments on my proposal would be graatefully received.

Regards,

jcbhydro

 

[pbaldy]

It is feasible, and yes every user needs Access. There is a free runtime version available.

 

[jcbhydro]

Many thanks Paul for your prompt and useful reply.

I now have to decide whether it is worth proceeding with task, in view of the very lukewarm attitude of half of the 50 Group Leaders to any IT flavoured project.

Regards,

jcbhydro

 

[shoji]

Hi jcbhydro,

2 questions:

1. Do those 50 Group Leaders work on the same LAN or are they located remotely? If the latter, Access may not be ideal.

2. Have you split your database into the back end (just tables) and the front end (all others)? If not, this is the first thing to do.

Best,

Shoji

 

[Minty]

Access does not work well over WAN, however with the simplicity of the requirement (At the moment..) you could probably get away with it using suitably designed unbound forms.

 

[jcbhydro]

Hi Shoji,

Thank you for your interest.
To respond to your quesstions;
1) The Group Leaders are not on a Network.
ii) I don't understand 'front & back end'. The Database consists of 5 Tables, 6 Forms & sub-Forms, 25 Queries, about 10 Reports and a couplee of multi-Report generating Macros. All of these are currently accessible to only 3 persons, with only one of those inputting or editing.

Regards,

jcbhydro

 

[shoji]

Hi jcbhydro,

So your idea is that 50 users will have a copy of DB on their desktop and they all enter and share the same data, hopefully synchronized quickly enough.

Well, I am afraid this is not going to work. To give just one problematic scenario, suppose User A adds a new record but User B almost at the same adds a new record. User B may be running the DB that was not yet synchronized with the DB updated by User A, thus by the time User B's DB is synchronized, User A's data will be lost.

Access has a feature called replication and this is precisely for your kind of purpose. However, in my opinion, Access Replication is an invitation to a mess. Avoid it by all means, especially if you are not an Access guru.

Do you have a server that all 50 users can log in remotely? If so, using the remote desktop connection may be the easiest and safest way to go.

If this is not an option for you, you may want to explore into a web-based project. In this age of cloud computing, vendors, particularly Microsoft, make it sound like a simple thing to do to use a cloud database, but it is not.

Aside from the above, you should split your DB into the back-end and front-end DBs. The back end DB consists of just tables (data) and the front end DB all the rest (forms, queries, reports, etc.) The back end DB will be linked to the front end so it works the same way, but you can change the FE without touching the data. This is important if you want the DB to be used by multiple people.

Sorry I sound negative.

Shoji

 

[jcbhydro]

Thank you Shoji for your comments,

No, I have not stated an intention to give 50 participants access to the database.
My first posting on the subject sought advice in principle to the feasibility of access to password protected Forms. ie each participant would have access to a password protected Form, each Form being unique to that participant. Thus synchronization is not an issue.

Please don't waste your valuable time in further consideration of the subject, as I have concluded that the project would be inordinately complex with minimal benefits.

Regards,

jcbhydro