Share a database with others?

[jk42]

Hi!

I work remotely from a lap top, and sometimes connect to my desktop that's physically in the office. Both my lap top and the desktop in the office have Access on them. As I was designing the database for my company, I did it on my laptop because it performs much faster than connecting remotely to my desktop and working with Access through there. My question is: Now that I have the database ready and others can use it (they don't have Access on their computers yet, but plan to get it, will jsut be doing data entry for now, they have no access experience) how do I share it?! I think that for now, the only people that will use it will be doing data entry type stuff and they are all located in the same office, with the same server access. But I think that the long term plan is for people to be able to use it for a lot of things, including some people that aren't physically located in the same office as these others. I have tried to research some possibilities, but it wasn't very clear to me how it would work. Any suggestions or resources would be great. It seems like it isn't as easy to share a database as it is to share an excel sheet!

Thanks!

 

[rzw0wr]

You should not share a database. Each user should have their own copy.
The database should be split. The BE on a common drive/network and the FE on the user's computer.

Dale

 

[jk42]

Is this something that I will need the help of the IT department for? Can I send the database from my laptop Access over email to my desktop copy of Access? And if I'm the only back end user, I will be able to update and change things on the server copy, and it will update to the front end users copies? And the front end users will only have certain items in their copy? Any extra explanation will be SO helpful!

Thanks!

 

[rzw0wr]

Is this something that I will need the help of the IT department for?

This depends on you company and how the computer is setup.

Can I send the database from my laptop Access over email to my desktop copy of Access?

I have done this if the db is not to large.

And if I'm the only back end user, I will be able to update and change things on the server copy, and it will update to the front end users copies?

All users will use the BE. No you will not be able to update the FE from the BE.
You need to read a little about split databases. I don't think you understand how they work yet.

And the front end users will only have certain items in their copy?

I don't understand this. An FE is an FE. All have the same copy. They will have whatever you put into the database for them.

Dale

 

[Frothingslosh]

In a nutshell, when you split an Access database into a front end and a back end, the back end will only have the tables in it. The front end contains everything else.

You will not be making changes to the back end and auto-updating them to the front end, as they each contain completely separate parts of your application.

It IS possible to create a method for having the front end auto-update, but I would advise against it until you're more familiar with Access and VBA. For now, after you release an update, you'll just have to have people copy the front end from the server to their machines manually.

Also, you mention having remote users use this tool. You should be aware that access tends to perform poorly over a WAN, even when split. You might need to use a SQL Server back end instead.