[AccessD] AXP Question

Roz,

I hope you have analytical and cross-reference tools such as those that
come with FMS's Total Access Analyzer, otherwise how are you ever going
to overhaul all those reports, queries and forms?

Charles Wortz
Software Development Division
Texas Education Agency
1701 N. Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701-1494
512-463-9493
CWortz at tea.state.tx.us



-----Original Message-----
From: Roz Clarke [mailto:roz.clarke at donnslaw.co.uk] 
Sent: Monday 2003 Jun 09 11:05
To: 'accessd at databaseadvisors.com'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AXP Question

Ermmm...

1) The user would never be saving changes over the original report -
they would be making a copy and each report created in this way would be
categorised as belonging to the user who made the change. Each report
would have a saved description and whatever other info would be
necessary to identify the purpose for which that report was created.
Reports would be located through a search form and only the creator of
each report would be able to modify or delete it. I think it would work
fine. You're just treating reports as if they were Word files or
whatever, only with more control. But it doesn't matter anyway 'cause we
can't do it...

2) The FE's we presently have ARE an unusable mess; don't want to
emulate them! They have been in use since A2 and have been updated by a
stream of developers. None of the original developers are still with the
company. We never dare delete an old report and the number of variations
users ask for is incredible - the system that emerged through nobody
thinking it through has resulted in new forms, new buttons on forms and
new reports being added at random (and the difference between one and
the next may be teeny) - and it's hard to break the habit because the
users always need that new report available NOW. Like I said, there are
about 400 reports in use. There are over 1000 queries but I'm not even
going there :P Until recently they weren't even being documented. Once
the Access reports are overhauled we gotta start looking at Excel...
*sigh*



-----Original Message-----
From: John Colby [mailto:jcolby at colbyconsulting.com] 
Sent: 09 June 2003 15:22
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AXP Question


Roz,

Correct, only temporary changes.  If the user were to permanently save
the changes, wouldn't that cause the next user to see those changes?
That would be chaos.  Further, it sounds like with 230 potential users
all saving their own copies of various reports modified however they
wanted, any FE would quickly become an unusable mess.

I think you haven't adequately explained to us how the old system worked
so we could see what you are trying to emulate.

John W. Colby
www.colbyconsulting.com

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Roz Clarke
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 10:11 AM
To: 'accessd at databaseadvisors.com'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AXP Question


John

True about the conflicts, but these could be handled as even the
temporary changes would be getting made to a copy - a copy that would be
deleted at the end of the session (unless they decided to keep it).
You'd only have to lock the report whilst the copy was being made.
Academic anyway as we can't now go back to A97.

There are about 20 frequent users and another 230 potential users. We
tend to have 10-12 concurrent users in our main reports database at the
moment and about 6 at a time in the other 3 but those are largely the
same people.

Your suggestion is intriguing, but would only address temporary changes,
yes? They wouldn't have the option of retaining the new version. It
might be good for ad-hoc reporting though.

-----Original Message-----
From: John Colby [mailto:jcolby at colbyconsulting.com]
Sent: 09 June 2003 14:42
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AXP Question


Roz,

Why could you in A97 and not in AXP?  It seems that in a97 you would
have had massive conflicts as users tried to open the same report in
design view.

On a more practical note, how many users are there?  Could you have the
user run a batch file instead of opening Access directly.  The batch
file copies the FE to their own directory.  They open that copy.  Since
they are no longer opening it shared, problem solved.

John W. Colby
www.colbyconsulting.com