Database Development

So What is a Database?
In essence a database is a collection of data (records) that are related in some way and can be analysed to show only certain information ordered to suit the user. In a spreadsheet of business contacts, for example, you would need to repeat the company details for each row that contained the contact information for each employee of that company.

This is bulky, slow and prone to errors. What is to stop you mis-spelling the company name on one or more of those employee records? In a database, or relational database to give it its proper name, the company information only is stores in one table, and the employee details are stored in a second table, with the two tables being related by the Company.

Why do I need a custom built database?
Most companies don’t. The majority of business requirements can be taken care of using off-the-shelf applications, whether it’s an accounts package, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) package or simple spreadsheets to keep an eye on orders and work in progress.

But sometimes, companies do something a little different, or there isn’t an off-the-shelf package that suits their type of business, and they don’t want to change the way they run their business just to fit in with a ‘best fit’ piece of software. Or it may be, since employee wages are the largest overhead to any business, companies sometime look to reduce the labour element of processing their throughput of work by automating more of the day to day tasks that need to be done.

This is where we can help.

Can you integrate with my existing applications?
The Microsoft suite of applications have all been designed to work and integrate with each other. VBA is a common programming language shared by all of these applications, and it allows developers to control one application from another. For example, it is possible to generate an email automatically from an Access database and send it using Outlook. This is a completely automated routine, and all the client sees is the email in his Sent Items.

The email can include an attachment, again fully automated, and can be sent to a distribution list rather than to only one person, so this would be a great way of automating your newsletters and new product launches to contacts in your Outlook Contact List.

New for Access 2007, is the ability to create .pdf documents directly from the database (or indeed any other Office 2007 application). This then allows an Access report to be ‘separated’ from the database, saved as a .pdf document, and perhaps attached to an email and sent to your client, again all automatically.

Also for 2007, the back end data can be stored on a Microsoft SharePoint site, so that the same data can be shared amongst workers in geographically disparate locations.

Access 2010 brings the ability to design the 'front end' of the database (the bit that sits on your PC, with the data on your server) to be hosted on a Microsoft SharePoint site as welll as the backend data. This effectively gives you a database driven website, accessible to everyone, regardless of operating system (so it works on Macs too) with nothing needed to be downloaded onto the loacl user's PC.