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A Database for the Office?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the something-to-start-small-and-build-on dept.

travellerjohn asks: "I work in a small company (200 people in 7 offices), where the staff uses Microsoft Access to create various databases. Most of the time they lose interest before the databases become complex or important enough to warrant the IT department getting involved. However, from time to time, someone turns up at our door looking for help with their pet project, often starting with statements like 'it should work over the intranet' or questions like 'why can't it store documents and pictures?' or 'how do I control user access?' When we sit them down and explain how much it will cost to rewrite their database in PHP/VB/JSP, or whatever we sound unhelpful and expensive. What database tool does Slashdot recommend I provide our staff? It has got to be easy to use, web enabled, capable of storing documents and pictures and offer user level security. We have tried Sharepoint with some success but that is pretty limited, too, and I have looked at Oracle Application Express. Open source would be good, but I would pay for the right product. Any suggestions?"

2 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Solve next years problem as well as todays... by riprjak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... BAN Access. One day the database "created just for a simple task" may become the repository of mission critical business data. Access is inappropriate and incompetent to the task of being a "database" in any meaningful sense of the word.

    Training is critical; ensure staff recieve spreadsheet (excel or your chosen open source brew) training in reasonable depth... Then encourage them to use spreadsheets for "simple tasks" involving data storeage. Making some "standard" macros for query dialogs is useful here. Then if the data does become important, it is a trivial task to move it into a real database (unlike access!).

    One solution I have seen effectively used is the creation of a "general" database using mysql and a rather clever PHP front end. The database allowed for 8 "fields"; each field was really three fields, Data descriptor, Data name and Data type. Essentially the ID-10-T entered a name for the data field, its data and selected a type from a drop down box. They could select previous "name and type" combinations they had used. This then spawns a copy of this "standard" database with user access privelges set to a default rule; another interface allowed advanced users to adjust this. Finally a generic PHP gateway presented them a data entry/query sheet that formatted itself based on type... Sure, it was probably alot of work, once; but it ensured that all future databases created were in "real" databases that were relatively easy to maintain for the IT department.

    Essentially, my suggestion is to encourage them to work with excel or similar with a few standard macros/dialogs created to allow data entry and search to be "simple" (small up front work by IT, maintenance required); or create a more complex "standardised" database and access system (alot of up front effort, minimal maintenance). This trades effort for ease of future scaleability and maintenance.

    Just my $0.02
    err!
    jak

  2. Re:Axis by vandan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sorry. I suppose I could have elaborated a little further.

    Axis is a collection of 3 projects:

    - Gtk2::Ex::DBI ( forms )
    - Gtk2::Ex::Datasheet ( datasheets )
    - PDF::ReportWriter ( reports )

    They're all cross-platform ( heavyily tested under Linux and Windows 2000 ) and open-source.

    The basic idea is that you create your GUI in Glade ( ie Gtk2 ). You then create a Gtk2::Ex::DBI object, pass it your Glade XML file, and it will connect to the table you specify, and 'bind' all the widgets in your Glade XML file with a name that matches a fieldname in the table.

    The datasheet module is similar, but instead of creating a GUI and laying out widgets and such, everything goes into a treeview ( datasheet ).

    PDF::ReportWriter makes high-quality reports from XML report definitions. It supports unlimited grouping, group functions such as sum, count, etc, intelligent page breaking, page headers & footers, and a WHOLE lot more.

    There are plentiful screenshots on the website. All modules are under active development ( ie right now ). All feature requests, bug reports and patches welcome. Check it out :)

    http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis_not_evil