Sending Forms to multiple persons to fill out (1 Viewer)

[patsaison]

I built an Access 2003 survey database and want to send the forms I developed to 15 geographically dispersed company employees to fill out. We have internet access, intranet and shared drives.

The idea is to have them fill out the forms, and then I will take their data and append to my master database tables. I was thinking of cloning my master database 15 times, and sending each one a MDE version, with the standard forms and tables, and then getting the data filled out by the standard forms, and then appending the individual tables into the master tables. But I think there must be a better and easier way.

Is there anyway I can just email the forms (or tables) to the 15 people, they fill it out, and then email back to me?

Or, alternatively, I put my database on a company shared drive and let them input directly to the database.

Or, alternatively, put the database on the intranet or something?

Thanks for your responses.

 

[rainman89]

if you all have access to the shared drive, look into splitting your database and giving each user their own front end. This should allow all users to enter data into the database directly

 

[patsaison]

I am not an expert on Access, so if you could clarify a bit. What do you mean by front-end--the forms or what? How do I give each user a front-end?

Thanks for responding.

 

[rainman89]

There are many articles out there about splitting your database

Heres one
http://www.databasedev.co.uk/split_a_database.html

 

[Galaxiom]

While it works on a good intranet, it isn't a good idea to try and run a split database across the Internet because of the relatively high latency and potential for dropouts.

One way around this is to have the front end on a server at the central location and use Terminal Services to operate it remotely.