How to set up a recurring data collecting email with Microsoft Access?

[jackmcphee4423]

I have MS Access 2010 tables, each with 100-200 records. Each record represents an exact task and has an empty field at the end for progress. I'd like to receive status report data (in percentages) from the colleagues each week about the progresses. Not cumulative data, but the progress of each week on each task.



I managed to create data collection emails with the wizard and MS Outlook, but that only showed one record per email.

As one table should be updated by one person, I would like to list all the records with each field of a table in one email (so the submitter can identify the tasks), and only the empty field should be writable where they can enter the progress.
Finally when they submit, all the records should be saved in a separate table as new records anytime a new submission arrives.

Please find an example MS Access table here:


Then here is the desired example of the email form:


And finally for the outcome database (in Access) I'm hoping for something like this:


Any help or guidance would be highly appreciated.

[HiTechCoach]

What you want to do is possible.

I am a professional programmer. Very skilled with VBA. I have done similar projects like this before with VBA code. Already knowing how to do it, It would probably take me a minimum of 15 hours for a fully tested solution.

Something to consider:

From Access save all the records for a user to an Excel workbook.. Send the Excel file as an attachment to each user. The user can update the excel file and return it back as an attachment. Import he Excel file back into access.

This will be much simpler to code.

Thee excel method should take about 10% of the time of other way.

[NTC]

Using an excel template as suggested by BT is what I would also recommend. Harvesting data via email is a fragile concept as it glues together different technologies.

If the colleagues are all on the same LAN - then you could give them a very simple classic Access front end to use to enter their data linking to your table.

If the colleagues are spread out geographically - you could consider an Access web form if they are all internal employees or if they are from external organizations one could use a very low cost web service such as Zoho for their data input - and then download & import the data into your Access application periodically.