Gustav Brock
Gustav at cactus.dk
Wed Mar 17 09:49:19 CDT 2010
Hi John The big question is how the lead data get into the worksheet. Are they extracted/exported from somewhere or are they typed in manually? If the latter, they could as well type data into a (web)form of yours. If you are not in the mood for creating your first web application, the simple method is to create a winform in a small Windows app which you leave running on a (virtual) machine for which you grant the client remote access. A splendid and free method for this is to use LogMeIn Free. /gustav >>> jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com 17-03-2010 14:52 >>> As you guys know, I have started doing a lot of stuff in C#. One specific client places orders with me to provide him "counts of records where..." kind of thing. To make a long story short, it is a moderately complex process which I am automating using C#. However what I would REALLY like to do is to make it a process that they can do themselves. My question to those who know more than I (translated "most everybody") how would i go about doing something like this. 1) The client is in NY. 2) The data is in my server in NC 3) The server is Windows 2003 4) SQL Server 2008 5) I have and am getting pretty comfortable with C# 6) I have moderately high internet speed, 12M down 1 meg up, but the new "burst mode" which essentially doubles that for the first 30 seconds. So... What are my options? 1) Make it a browser based widget that hits a web server here in my office. I don't know how to build a web app. 2) Make it a service based C# program that they have on their desktop but hits a data service on my office. I don't know how to do web services yet. 3) Something else that I am not thinking about yet. At the moment the client sends me a spreadsheet of zips. I do a machination, place the zips in a directory, import into a database in SQL Server. Maybe perform a minor edit to an existing view to get the counts. Open an email and paste the results back in, and send the email. I have this process down from what used to take an hour or two back a year or so ago to about 15 or 20 minutes today, but I still have to be in the loop. My idea is to build a program that allows them to do this themselves, log that it has happened and bill them $25 (or something) every time they do a count. Let them do it themselves making it faster for them, gets me out of the loop, drops my income a little but I get paid for my computer instead of my time. Gets me out of the loop is BIG! -- John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com