Hey everyone,
Let me give you a rundown on our setup. We're a small, small firm, so
please take this setup with a grain of salt, with both of us knowing
it's probably not the best setup ever (and I'm more than happy to hear
suggestions).
On our webserver we have a MySQL database that collects information on
our clients (name, address, etc) when they fill out a form to sign up.
On our local network, we have an Access DB that's been split between
front and back end (with linked tables). The users of this database
know they cannot update the MEMBERS records on the local access
database (since the online one is considered the master)
Currently, through a series of copy and pastes, we will copy the
up-to-date record information from the online DB into the MEMBERS table
in the access table (exact same structure). While this system can be
cumbersome, it's working well and suits our needs.
In the pursuit of constantly making things "easier", I'd like to refine
this process. I'm currently playing around with ODBC and am able to
link the MySQL MEMBERS table into Access, which is nice because now
we're working with live data and don't need to manually update.
The problems I forsee, obviously, is speed since our net connection
isn't the fastest thing on the planet, so traversing the records is
slower. Also, if we should be without internet, we'd have no access to
our MEMBERS table.
Is there a way to store a local copy of the online table to be used..
sort of an "offline" version, then create a way to synchronize the
information between the 2?
I guess the long-and-short of it is that we're ok making updates and
changes to the online database, but if we could get the synchronizing
down to a button click, or something, that would be, at minimum, better
than what we have now.
If you were in this position, what kinds of things would you consider
doing?
