RFID In Access 2007

[james_halliwell]

Hi ALL,

after some advice, someone may have already tried this, i am wanting to create a database which will log times on jobs using rfid card everyone has, i want to use the cards already in use and create my own database which each person can scan on and off job i cannot use the ones mounted already so i need to use my own

is this possible, has any on tryed this, looking for any advise before i spend some money on a usb reader

many thanks

 

[Lightwave]

Yes this is entirely possible.

It is however quite involved.

The bare bones of your system will be

TableofRFIDChips - (Probably available when you buy the chips)
TableofPeople - (From your work)
TableofRFIDChipsandTimes - (Produced by your chip reader)

I put together an Access Database that measures runners in athletic races which works off RFID chips the pattern should be exactly the same for your system.

Before you start see if you can get an example file from the machine you are looking to purchase. You are going to have to completely understand the fomat of the information that comes out of that. It is quite possible that it will be in a slightly awkward format. Hexidecimal single string for instance. In which case you will need to firstly parse out everything to give you a key and a date/time stamp.

Like I said if you can get an example file that would be great..

You then take a combined file which you created in the database of people and their allocated chip codes (allocation of codes to people is done in the database) and then automatically join this to the file you just parsed.

You now have a table of people and when they came in and out.

There's quite a lot more to it. For instance you might need gating to stop multiple reads and then you are going to have to do some form of a pivot work out periods.

No point in getting ahead of yourself first get an example log file and see if you can understand it.

Without that no database will help you.

 

[james_halliwell]

Hi and thanks for you reply good to know someone else has done this my initial ideal was to have a reader which the user scans this will be somthing like a 5 digit Id once scanned a afterupdate event timestamps the record somthing like field logtimein the user would then select a job from a touchscreen which again has an afterupdate to record the activity and franchise

So I would have probabley one table tblidnames
Then a table for franchises and one for activities and another table tbltimelog

All in all we have 7 differnent franchises each has arond 7 different activities so I would create 7 forms each one for a franchise which stamps the franchise and Id scanned and also activity

Still at the theory stage and wanted to know if rfid was even an option

Many thanks for the reply did you encounter many problen with you build any pointers that I could take for you

Still learning with access but loving it always looking for a reason to build one but this one will help me out big time


Cheers

 

[Lightwave]

I don't know whether it is the same with the scanners that you are looking at but with different Timing Technologies the format of the information produced from the scanners is different and you may not have any control of that format. So it will probably be a good idea to buy all the scanners devices at the same time and ensure that they are exactly the same.

Additionally you want to try and separate the parsing of the information as much as possible from the linking.

That way in the future if new systems come along you can alter the parsing if the format of the RFID output changes.