Question about Global variables and BE/FE applications

[jonathanchye]

Hi,

I currently have a public module to track user names and logons etc. This works fine if only me open the DB.

I wonder what will happen after I split the DB and distribute the FE to each end users PC. Will the variable then be saved locally in this case? ie every user will have their own variables saved?

Will Option Compare Database be supported in multi user environments? TO further explain here is an example of how I declare my variables :

Option Compare Database

Public userID As Long

This is done under a module called "basVariableTracker"

I then call userID in forms and asign a value to them and then recall it later in other forms etc...

I plan to first split the DB I am implementing into BE/FE. Save the BE on the shared drive (server) and then ask the user to copy a FE to their own desktop and run the FE on their desktop. Will this work?

 

[boblarson]

1. Global Variables are available (and even if it wasn't split they are only available for the person who has it open). They are not available for all who log in as a single variable. The instance is per user regardless of it being split or not.

2. Yes, Option Compare Database is valid for multi-user and is nothing you have to worry about.

3. Yes, it all will work as it would if it wasn't split.

 

[jonathanchye]

1. Global Variables are available (and even if it wasn't split they are only available for the person who has it open). They are not available for all who log in as a single variable. The instance is per user regardless of it being split or not.

2. Yes, Option Compare Database is valid for multi-user and is nothing you have to worry about.

3. Yes, it all will work as it would if it wasn't split.

Good news all around then

Actually I have 2 options :

Option 1 ) Leave both the FE and BE on the server and every user opens FE on server. Users are all published desktop users (Citrix)

Option 2 ) Leave BE on server (shared drive) and every use copies a latest ACCDE version from a distribution folder onto their desktop and then open it locally.

I am leaning towards Option 2 at the moment as its been confirmed that the variables won't get mixed up

 

[boblarson]

Good news all around then

Actually I have 2 options :

Option 1 ) Leave both the FE and BE on the server and every user opens FE on server. Users are all published desktop users (Citrix)

Option 2 ) Leave BE on server (shared drive) and every use copies a latest ACCDE version from a distribution folder onto their desktop and then open it locally.

I am leaning towards Option 2 at the moment as its been confirmed that the variables won't get mixed up

Option 1 is definitely NOT a good option UNLESS the FE is copied to a separate profile folder for each of them. That is what we do here. I think I posted the code for you that copies the frontend to a folder on the Citrix Server which then opens up for them. That way they have the latest file and it doesn't have issues between users. And since we delete the files upon logout of Citrix and we also copy the file each time they double click a published app icon on the Citrix web app desktop they don't have problems with having the latest file. Also, if they get a corrupted frontend because a network connection drops (which happens more frequently than we'd really like) - all they have to do is to close the Access program and then reopen the database from the published app link and it copies it anew and opens for them. Works great.

 

[jonathanchye]

Option 1 is definitely NOT a good option UNLESS the FE is copied to a separate profile folder for each of them. That is what we do here. I think I posted the code for you that copies the frontend to a folder on the Citrix Server which then opens up for them. That way they have the latest file and it doesn't have issues between users. And since we delete the files upon logout of Citrix and we also copy the file each time they double click a published app icon on the Citrix web app desktop they don't have problems with having the latest file. Also, if they get a corrupted frontend because a network connection drops (which happens more frequently than we'd really like) - all they have to do is to close the Access program and then reopen the database from the published app link and it copies it anew and opens for them. Works great.

Thanks I don't believe I've seen the code though although I might have missed it. Will definitely have a look but can you please repost if you happen to find it?

 

[boblarson]

Here's a sample of one of our BAT files:

@echo Please wait while the version of the database you requested is updated.
 
@echo off
 
MD E:\BKY_temp\%username%
 
copy R:\FE\Current\Consolidated_Reports.mdb E:\BKY_temp\%username% /y
 
Start /max "E:\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.EXE" "E:\BKY_temp\%username%\Consolidated_Reports.mdb"
 
exit

 

[jonathanchye]

Here's a sample of one of our BAT files:

@echo Please wait while the version of the database you requested is updated.
 
@echo off
 
MD E:\BKY_temp\%username%
 
copy R:\FE\Current\Consolidated_Reports.mdb E:\BKY_temp\%username% /y
 
Start /max "E:\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.EXE" "E:\BKY_temp\%username%\Consolidated_Reports.mdb"
 
exit

Thanks. Will definitely have a look into that. Can't trust users to manually update sometimes I guess. I wonder how this works on a Citrix published desktop though.

 

[boblarson]

On our Citrix machine we have a place which has user folders created as they log in (don't know how exactly because I'm not the Citrix admin) but those are at:

E:\BKY_temp

as you can see in the code that is where they have a username folder. So, if my user name is dd2902 then I would have one at

E:\BKY_temp\dd2902\

and then this batch file copies the database frontend file into that folder and then opens it using the Start code.