Hey,

I have a question and I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction ...

Our athletic association has a registration database that is in Microsoft Access. I want to make our online registration process more fluid by allowing people to look up their records in the database and make changes if necessary.

Is there a way to do this online from a website? If so, can someone point me in the right direction?

You can do this (take a look at the mappath method -- I think it's on the server object), but it's NOT recommended as Access is not thread-safe. If you'd like to have any kind of database interaction with a web page the database needs to be something like SQL Server.

Dan

First of all, you will need a web application i.e. web pages that will read / write data to your database and show forms to your users to edit etc.

For this, you need a server side scripting language like PHP, CGI/Perl or ASP.

For an Access database, ASP is an obvious one because ASP / ODBC / Access are all Microsoft products and work well together.

You will need skills in these areas to be able to complete this task.

However, CagedTornado is correct about relying on Access to serve a website. In fact, it totally useless, unreliable and slow if you have more than 5 visitors a day (ok A Little cruel but I've had hard experience!)

You can migrate your ASP web site app quite easy to SQLServer after developing with access but SQLServer is an industrial, corporate database and there is a price tag to go with it so hosting could be expensive and SQLServer is really for big websites.

Instead, I'd migrate to MySQL (which powers this forum). It is a free, fast and reliable database designed for multi-user website access. You can initially develop your website in ASP / ODBC / Access and then migrate it to MySQL. Because ODBC - it allows you talk to any ODBC compliant database (most of them are) with some minor tweaks.

Or, you can simply forget Microsoft products and not run on Microsoft servers and use a script to migrate all your Access data into MySQL and develop the site in PHP (just like this forum).

I've probably confused you now....

I been down all these routes before so ask....

Originally posted by Chips&Beans
Instead, I'd migrate to MySQL (which powers this forum). It is a free, fast and reliable database designed for multi-user website access. You can initially develop your website in ASP / ODBC / Access and then migrate it to MySQL. Because ODBC - it allows you talk to any ODBC compliant database (most of them are) with some minor tweaks.


THANKS!

Here is my issue ... I don't mind moving to MySQL, but there are three issues I am concerned about:

1) Forms. I have one form we created for registrations that I would need to recreate. Can I do this with MySQL? What would I use?

The form is at:

ftp://ftp.stpsports.com/regform.tif

2) Queries. How do I do queries? I guess I would need a SQL front end.

3) Data import. How would I move the access database into MySQL format?

THANKS!

Originally posted by pgrote


THANKS!

Here is my issue ... I don't mind moving to MySQL, but there are three issues I am concerned about:

1) Forms. I have one form we created for registrations that I would need to recreate. Can I do this with MySQL? What would I use?

The form is at:

ftp://ftp.stpsports.com/regform.tif

2) Queries. How do I do queries? I guess I would need a SQL front end.

3) Data import. How would I move the access database into MySQL format?

THANKS!

Aloha
try my best here:
1: your form would be created using standard mark up language such as html
if you decided to use php or asp it may have a dif end extension (you can look up above and see teh php ext here in this board)
so you could use, notepad, dreamweaver, frontpage etc.. to create your web form

2:Query would be handled in a few ways you could have admin pages made that would allow you to type in dif queries or have predefined ones that could run reports etc...
this again will depend on if you design this using php asp etc....

3: data import you may be able to take your info and push it out in a delimted format and suck it back in to MySQL
I have heard of a program that will convert the info over not sure about how it works I have heard mixed results
we went from sybase to SQL2000 in a co our db person just made a script that ran out all the fields and returned them to the proper tables etc...
I would suggest you get a good company that has done database work and is good at creating forms etc...
remember with designers adn DB people you get what you pay for so find a good web dev person/ Team to handle this for you

you could use access if you are running a win2k or NT server
it has its limits but if you are not expecting more than 10-15 users at teh same time entering info you will be OK
it can be made to be secure
again this gets back to people who do not like MS or are not familiar with it not knowing how to set it up saying it is bad
just like any web related work
a person who is good at asp and access is better than someone who does not know PHP and MySQL
I would say in the long run a mysql version would be better if you are never planning on going to SQL2000 or .net platform
if your company is on a win2k server now go with access if not and it will never grow to huge amounts go with MySQL and php interface that someone can custom create for you

Originally posted by pgrote
[B]

THANKS!



Glad to help.


Here is my issue ... I don't mind moving to MySQL, but there are three issues I am concerned about:

1) Forms. I have one form we created for registrations that I would need to recreate. Can I do this with MySQL? What would I use?

The form is at:

ftp://ftp.stpsports.com/regform.tif


This form can be re-written in a server side scripting language such as ASP, PHP or Perl/CGI - depending on what you prefer. They all talk to MySQL although PHP and Perl/CGI offer the most flexibility since they can run reliably on any platform.

There is no dependency with MySQL or Access or SQLServer or any database. Try to disassociate the two since one is a form and the other is a database. The PHP or whatever would write into the database using insert or update SQL statements. PHP works really well with MySQL (in my own personal experience).



2) Queries. How do I do queries? I guess I would need a SQL front end.



As Honu said, you can either prepare reports using PHP forms that retrieve, say all members beginning with A or who have paid etc. etc. Or, if you are using virtual hosting, you can write a PHP form that will accept ad-hoc SQL queries and displays the results in a HTML table. MySQL, as in indeed any database, has gots it own querying frontend but its unlikekly to be available with most virtual hosts.



3) Data import. How would I move the access database into MySQL format?


Data transfer is definately possible - I can't remember the site but there are some good sites with advice on how to do it - do a search on Google or look at www.mysql.com. Again as Honu says, it involves exporting out of access into a text file and using mysqlimport facility provided by MySQL to import data.
You would probably have to do this on your home machine if your host will not allow port access to MySQL or a command line to run commands on. It is easy to install MySQL and Access on a home PC.


Good luck.