Share Forms Over Internet

[JayRab]

Just wondering if there is a way to share a form over the internet to update as data is input. I have a form that shows the status of all equipment if it is running down or whatever.

I would like to be able to share this over the internet. So the managers who are offsite can simply go to a webpage and see what is currently going on. Without having to VPN log onto our network and open the database. As equipment changes status it is updated by the user.

Not sure if this is possible or not. Any links or directions to point me in to see if this is possible. We have this access program running at several locations and if I can get this webapp/page working it will make it more likely to expand to ALL locations.

this is the information I would like to share. If it could be dynamic and update as it changes would be nice. Or maybe just a refresh every 30 mins.



Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks
JR

[ItsMe]

The old way was to use Data Access Pages. Access 2010 does not support the creation of new DAPs. I have built and used DAPs in Access 2003. You may be able to create an MDB file and DAPs using Access 2007, I do not know.

The new way is SharePoint and web forms. I have not tried SharePoint. It seems you need to pay for a subscription to services of SharePoint.

Using the old way has its limitations because only certain web browsers are compatible with DAPs. Considering DAP is deprecated, an update to a web browser could cause them to stop working. Plus, you would need a web server with Windows IIS running (and actually working with an ODBC to an Access file).

Another approach may be Outlook and forms. In Access 2010 I noticed a feature that will interact with Outlook and create an HTML formatted email to include XML elements.

[JayRab]

Thanks Ill try and do some research on this. Just figured it would be a nice feature to add.

[ItsMe]

Sure thing. My preference is to Email PDF files and have the consumer complete and save the PDF form and email back. You can do this with Adobe Acrobat and use your custom Access app to interact with Acrobat.

Another option would be to just create your own web page that is a form, without the help of Access or Adobe. Using HTML, create a web page that is a form. Publish it on a website using one of the many web hosting services for a yearly fee. A paid service should offer the ability to have your web page store data in a text file in a secure location. You could then, periodically, use Access to FTP to the text file and retrieve data.