12LEE

I'm planning to build a do it all db for order entry, label printing, email confirmations, invoicing, stock control, etc., as I've had it with Sage. Anyone done/purchased anything similar or got any relevant experience/views?

chiark

Lee,

My main bit of advice would be to design what you want before even thinking of opening the application. Sort out your entities, relationships and functionality required. Actually write down what you want in a semi-formal document.

The reason I say this is access is great for prototyping, but at the end of the day is still a very powerful RDBMS. You can very easily start off doing things one way, spend a couple of weeks getting things how you want, and then find out you've taken yourself down a blind alley which really doesn't allow the functionality you actually need.

Split the front end (forms, reports, queries) from the back end (tables, relationships) as then you can upgrade your front end by just releasing a new front end MDB file leaving the back end intact.

If you want user-level security, enable it from day 1. If you don't, you may want to consider application level security as the model isn't the greatest, but it is normally adequate.

Cheers,

Nick.

12LEE

best brush up on my Jackson Structured Programming ;-)

chiark

Not JSP, you want ER and Boyce-Codd Normal Form

12LEE

****. Dead before it's out of the stalls.

chiark

RallyMarshal

Id second Chiarks recommendation about speccing the system properly first but make sure it does what the business wants, not what the it department (!) thinks it wants.

I use Access to write/develop bespoke business systems for small companies and you can get it to do virtually everything such a business wants - stock control and purchasing, customer data, employee data, quotation systems, ordering etc... (the list goes on)

My systems are usually used by around 5 users concurrently using a client server model. If it was many more users Id think about sql or even msde with access or vb frontend.

Paul..

super_si

i might be wrong but....

It your using a data base, make a GUI in Visual basic

i did it at uni as a project and pissed it for once

si

chiark

Si, Access is simple to do the front end in and has good reporting tools built in. For this reason, I'd recommend sticking with Access. Do write the front end using a separate MDB file tho.

Cheers,

Nick.

GaryK

hey but why re-invent the wheel? If its already there use it dont re-write it

Hey and Si, yes VB is easy - easy to do well, easy to do badly!

Gary

DazV

Access is cheap, great to learn on for beginners and intermediates, and does a half-decent job for up to 20 users.

Also great to prototype on as someone has said - although it does have its own little ideosyncrasies to deal with.

Also Microsoft in their usual wisdom(!) decided to use their own version of SQL, so portability can raise some issues.

-DV