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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
Hi everyone
I am trying to help a friend create a new work flow for his office. I would like to build him a custom application that he and his employees can use to access and manage their data. My question relates to how concurrent users would access an Access database? I was thinking of a creating an Access file that had data about their customers, as well as internal links to other documents of the clients, a main menu switchboard as a starting place, forms and reports, and automation. I would then store this application (is it just an Access file) on the office's server, and each employee could open the file and work from it. What happens when all 5 employees are working from the file at once? what happens if one person alters or creates data in the file? Can i restrict some parts of the application to certain users? thanks a lot for any help. Windows and Office is foreign ground for me. |
#2
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
Here's a response to the first question...
Out of the box, Access is designed to support multiple users. However, having everyone trying to 'hit' the same file on the network at the same time is almost surely guaranteed to result, sooner or later, in corruption, and will degrade network performance and make maintenance/upgrade difficult. Instead, the common approach to building Access applications is to put all the data in one Access database, out on your network. The rest (forms, queries, etc.) goes into a second Access database. Link that second Access database to the tables/data in the one on the network. Then put a copy of that second db on EACH user's desktop/PC. This is called "splitting", and reduces the problems noted above. Good luck! -- Regards Jeff Boyce Microsoft Access MVP "minofifa" wrote in message news Hi everyone I am trying to help a friend create a new work flow for his office. I would like to build him a custom application that he and his employees can use to access and manage their data. My question relates to how concurrent users would access an Access database? I was thinking of a creating an Access file that had data about their customers, as well as internal links to other documents of the clients, a main menu switchboard as a starting place, forms and reports, and automation. I would then store this application (is it just an Access file) on the office's server, and each employee could open the file and work from it. What happens when all 5 employees are working from the file at once? what happens if one person alters or creates data in the file? Can i restrict some parts of the application to certain users? thanks a lot for any help. Windows and Office is foreign ground for me. |
#3
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
Jeff given you a great answer.
I have an article that explains how to setup and use ms-access in a multi-user environment: http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKal...plit/index.htm -- Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP) Edmonton, Alberta Canada |
#4
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
And to answer this part of the question:
minofifa wrote: Can i restrict some parts of the application to certain users? thanks a lot for any help. Windows and Office is foreign ground for me. Yes, either create separate front-end applications for each user, or you need to use the MDB format so that you can secure your database and give permissions to each user. The second choice is by far better, but there's more to learm. Here's where you can learn some security information: Security FAQ http://support.microsoft.com/downloa...les/SECFAQ.EXE Lynn Trapp's summarization: http://www.ltcomputerdesigns.com/The10Steps.htm KB articles: http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q165009 http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...-us/secfaq.exe http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=325261 Joan Wild's articles: http://www.jmwild.com/security02.htm http://www.jmwild.com/security97.htm http://www.jmwild.com/SecureNoLogin.htm http://www.jmwild.com/Unsecure.htm -- Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP http://www.datastrat.com http://www.mvps.org/access http://www.accessmvp.com |
#5
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
Awesome, thanks everyone for the resources. I really appreciate it.
I have one more question, and this may induce many of you to ream me out for being incredibly ignorant but... I have been reading a bit about windows server 2008 but it seems to me that a lot of the functions it provides can be more easily implemented using a sophisticated router. Our project is small so things like DNS, WINS, DHCP etc are overkill. I am leaning towards a solution where the office computers are connected with a single router, and one will act as a file sever, providing access to my MS Access backend. This server would probably only need to run Windows 7. the server would also hold all of the office's excel and word files (which would be accessed through the Access application via separate front ends deployed on each user's computer. Any advice would be much appreciated ( and I will be going through all of the great resources provided so far). Thanks again. "Arvin Meyer [MVP]" wrote: And to answer this part of the question: minofifa wrote: Can i restrict some parts of the application to certain users? thanks a lot for any help. Windows and Office is foreign ground for me. Yes, either create separate front-end applications for each user, or you need to use the MDB format so that you can secure your database and give permissions to each user. The second choice is by far better, but there's more to learm. Here's where you can learn some security information: Security FAQ http://support.microsoft.com/downloa...les/SECFAQ.EXE Lynn Trapp's summarization: http://www.ltcomputerdesigns.com/The10Steps.htm KB articles: http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q165009 http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...-us/secfaq.exe http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=325261 Joan Wild's articles: http://www.jmwild.com/security02.htm http://www.jmwild.com/security97.htm http://www.jmwild.com/SecureNoLogin.htm http://www.jmwild.com/Unsecure.htm -- Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP http://www.datastrat.com http://www.mvps.org/access http://www.accessmvp.com |
#6
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 12:36:09 -0700, minofifa
wrote: I have been reading a bit about windows server 2008 but it seems to me that a lot of the functions it provides can be more easily implemented using a sophisticated router. Our project is small so things like DNS, WINS, DHCP etc are overkill. I am leaning towards a solution where the office computers are connected with a single router, and one will act as a file sever, providing access to my MS Access backend. This server would probably only need to run Windows 7. the server would also hold all of the office's excel and word files (which would be accessed through the Access application via separate front ends deployed on each user's computer. This isn't really an Access question, but more of a Windows issue. You can certainly use Windows Server 2008 for this purpose, but from your description it's overkill: you could perfectly well use a peer to peer network of computers running Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, even Windows 98 if you're stuck that far back. An Access database does NOT need to be "on a Server" and you do not need to worry about DNS, etc. - the networking capabilities of Windows can deal with all that for you. Granted, if you want to get under the hood and set up group policies, control your networking architecture, etc. you certainly can - my point is that it is not *necessary* to do so in order to have a shared Access database. -- John W. Vinson [MVP] |
#8
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
=?Utf-8?B?bWlub2ZpZmE=?= wrote
in : I have been reading a bit about windows server 2008 but it seems to me that a lot of the functions it provides can be more easily implemented using a sophisticated router. Our project is small so things like DNS, WINS, DHCP etc are overkill. Um, you may not need a dedicated Windows server to act as DNS, WINS and DHCP server, but your workstations do need at least DNS, and if you're using dynamically-assigned IP addresses, there has to be a DHCP server. In general, your router (not your Windows server) would provide the DHCP services, and DNS would be provided for the Internet via the router. For a peer-to-peer LAN, if you have no local DNS or WINS server to keep track of the names and IP addresses of the machines inside your local LAN, you will have to enabled NETBIOS over TCP/IP. That is not, I believe, the default setting any longer. What it does is use broadcast packets to figure out which machine name correspondes to each TCP/IP address. In a small office network with a proper firewall (your router probably acts as firewall, and if you're using Network Address Translation (i.e., NAT), your local addresses are unroutable and can't be reached from outside your router, anyway), NETBIOS over TCP/IP is OK. Without the local DNS and WINS servers, you won't be able to use machine names, and will instead have to use IP addresses for the workstations to communicate with each other. I am leaning towards a solution where the office computers are connected with a single router, and one will act as a file sever, providing access to my MS Access backend. This sounds fine, as long as you have your NETBIOS over TCP/IP setting correct. This server would probably only need to run Windows 7. Why? It could run any version of Windows workstation. While Windows 7 is quite a nice workstation OS, I'm not sure that it is a better server, so I see no reason to privilege it over any other version. If I had a choice between WinXP, Vista and Windows 7, I'd probably put them in this order of descending desirability to function as peer-to-peer server: 1. WinXP 2. Windows 7 3. Vista The reason for Vista coming in last is that it's less efficient than Windows 7, and because it has had problems with certain new networking settings (they got them right in Windows 7, though). Also, you need to consider the speed of the workstation (more CPU cycles is better), the amount of RAM (more is better), and the disk storage (more is better, faster drives are better). So, you might end up with a sub-optimal choice on OS because the hardware is much better on the machine with the newer OS. the server would also hold all of the office's excel and word files (which would be accessed through the Access application via separate front ends deployed on each user's computer. This sounds right. However, keep in mind that it's not ideal to be using a workstation as a peer-to-peer server, particularly if that workstation gets heavy use. -- David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/ usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/ |
#9
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users? - Boy is Steive desperate
"Steve" wrote in message
m... I provide help with Access, Excel and Word applications for a small fee. I could help you look at the forest and develop a strategy and implementation that significantly improves the efficiency of the current system. If you are interested, contact me. Steve So this is number eight of your pimping for today? If you were so good at Excel and Word, why are you not pimping your services there? Could it be that you have delusions of adaquecy? These newsgroups are provided by Microsoft for FREE peer to peer support. There are many highly qualified individuals who gladly help for free. Stevie is not one of them, but he is the only one who just does not get the idea of "FREE" support. He offers questionable results at unreasonable prices. If he was any good, the "thousands" of people he claims to have helped would be flooding him with work, but there appears to be a continuous drought and he needs to constantly grovel for work. A few gems gleaned from the Word New User newsgroup over the past Christmas period and a few gems from the Access newsgroups to show Stevie's "expertise". Dec 17, 2008 7:47 pm Word 2007 .......... In older versions of Word you could highlght some text then go to Format - Change Case and change the case of the hoghloghted text. Is this still available in Word 2007? Where? Thanks! Steve Dec 22, 2008 8:22 pm I am designing a series of paystubs for a client. I start in landscape and draw a table then add columns and rows to setup labels and their corresponding value. This all works fine. After a landscape version is completed, I next need to design a portrait version. Rather than strating from scratch, I'd like to be able to cut and paste from the landscape version and design the portrait version. Steve Dec 24, 2008, 1:12 PM How do you protect the document for filling in forms? Steve One of my favourites: Dec 30, 2008 8:07 PM - a reply to stevie (The original poster asked how to sort a list and stevie offered to create the OP an Access database) Steve wrote: Yes, you are right but a database is the correct tool to use not a spreadsheet. Not at all. If it's just a simple list then a spreadsheet is perfectly adequate... Sept 10, 2009 (In respose to a perfectly adequate GENERIC solution stevie wrote) This function is specific to the example but not generic for any amount paid out. Steve Sept 9, 2009 "Steve" wrote in message you can then return all the characters in front of it with the Left() fumction. Would look like: Left("YourString",Instr("YourString","VbCr" Or "VbLf") - 1) Steve No, it would not look like Left("YourString",Instr("YourString","VbCr" Or "VbLf") - 1) First of all, the constants are vbCr and vbLf: no quotes around them. With the quotes, you're looking for the literal strings. Second, you can't Or together character constants like that. Even if you could, Or'ing them together in the InStr function like that makes no sense at all. Sept 22,2009 Sorry Steve, even I can see that this is a useless answer. I made it pretty clear that "CW259" is just ONE possible value for the control. "Steve" wrote: Hello David, Open your report in design view and select txtOrderID. Open properties and go to the Data tab. Put the following expression in the Control Source property: =IIF([chkActive],"CW259","(CW259)") Steve John... Visio MVP |
#10
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Does Access Support Concurrent Users?
"Steve" wrote in message
m... Hello, Get lost $teve. Go away... far away.... No-one wants you here... no-one needs you here... OP look at http://home.tiscali.nl/arracom/whoissteve.html (Website has been updated and has a new 'look'... very soon we will 'celebrate' 10.000 pageloads...) For those who don't 'agree' with this mail , because $teve was 'helpfull' with his post... We warned him a thousand times... Sad, but he is not willing to stop advertising... He is just toying with these groups... advertising like hell... on and on... for years... oh yes... and sometimes he answers questions... indeed... and sometimes good souls here give him credit for that... == We are totally 'finished' with $teve now... == Killfile 'StopThisAdvertising' and you won't see these mails.... |
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