Data Entry to form a Word Document

[LOKIDOG]

I am working on a project and thought I’d put out a plea for suggestions about how to approach it.
Please let me know if you think this might be better posted in a different forum as well.

Here are the parts of the Project:

*A user interface with a number of questions that refer to a particular project. The user will choose yes, no or undetermined for each question about a resource.

* A database (table, or even a list or spreadsheet) of existing information for the Company. This will be organized by resource, and for each resource there is a bit of text (sometimes a couple paragraphs)

* A Word Document, The Report. This can then be edited, but most of the content will be here brought in from the database.

The process:

The user will go through the user interface, answering questions about various resources.
Once all the questions are answered, an automatic process will create a report. This report will be formed of particular records from the database based on what the user entered.

Basically - The user enters data, then for each resource a record in the database is incorporated into the report.

This needs to be a user-friendly application, and seamless. No Access use will be apparent - it will work completely in the background. It needs to run automatically from CD. (We can assume the user has Access loaded on their computer - but can it be made to work without it? How?)

I’d love any suggestions you may have - or warnings about possible pitfalls. I am envisioning using Access for this - but I don’t have to be tied down to this. One reason for using Access is to make updating the resource table easier in the future (the user will not do this, a technician will do this and recreate the CD) and the need to have the output a Word Document (and Access works easily with Word).

I appreciate all your help.

 

[TomCologne]

For output to Word look into these faqs:

'Native' mailmerge reports - as painless as possible faq181-5088

Alternative Mailmerge In Word Using Access Database That Does Not Use Words Mailmerge. faq181-453


"user interface with a number of questions that refer to a particular project."...
..."No Access use will be apparent - it will work completely in the background. "...

Does this mean that you don't want to use Access forms for data input? Or do you just want to hide the Acc window?


"(We can assume the user has Access loaded on their computer - but can it be made to work without it? How?)"

You need the Office Developer's Edition to install Acc as runtime version on computers without it.

I've never thought about running Acc from CD. Actually, I load all installation CDs onto the drive because I don't like inserting the CD for upgrades, repairs etc.
CD also is a lot slower. It may be possible to use a CD, but I think that depends on your project's size and purpose. If your project is just about generating a report, user answers do not need to be stored and the db's data doesn't change frequently, it might work. I have however no idea whether there are other issues.


TomCologne

 

[LOKIDOG]

Thanks much the for tips.

Yes - I could just hide the Acc window - that would be fine.

As for making the application run without the user having to have access installed:
Will look into the develpers edition and cost of doing this.

I wouldn't run this from CD either, but that's what the client wants. The table will not be that big, and the form will not be that large either so I think speed will be not much of an issue. Of course to be able to edit the table later a copy of it will need to be saved to disc. So you never know, the CD may in the end, be not what they really want.