jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Mar 17 10:00:19 CDT 2010
It appears that ordinarily they get a list of zips directly from their client, in a CSV. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com Gustav Brock wrote: > 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! >