Ok, our current problem is the classical "trying to allow multiple users access onto one fe file (this is in runtime currently)" - This cannot be handled (at least in AC2007) and is best solved by installing a FE on each computer that is using it.
This poses another problem for us, we have many employees who we want to be able to have access to it, yet the program probably doesn't warrent our techs to push out updates of this file to each computer with their "patches" (plus there may be added costs to doing such for us).
We would really prefer the ability for users to open a link from our internal portal to the file as can be currently achieved. We are mulling over the possibility of pushing out 4 or 5 copies of the FE application on a shared folder and creating an Access program that would essentially check to see if a FE app is open say FE1 and if so it would open FE2 (and so on) then close the sharepoint linked database that did the checking so a new user could open that. This would allow multiple users access to the same BE information using the same FE program.... would this work? Any ideas of how to go about it?
Yes it works, the idea is to create a function that checks for the open file, if it finds its open it replies with an error, on the error you can move to the following database. Here is a sample code:
Option Explicit
Function FileLocked(strFileName As String) As Boolean
On Error Resume Next
Open strFileName For Binary Access Read Write Lock Read Write As #1
Close #1
If Err.Number = 0 Then
Application.FollowHyperlink "c:\MasterMAX.accdr"
DoCmd.CloseDatabase
End If
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
Application.FollowHyperlink "c:\MasterMAX2.accdr"
End If
End Function
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about SharePoint, so I can't say if my proposed solution is still viable when SharePoint is involved.
If your problem is just how to distribute the file to all machines, why don't you let your users start a batch file that copies the Access frontend from a network share to each machine and starts it?
We are doing something similar at work (without SharePoint, though), and I described our setup here:
How to automatically update MS-Access 2007 application
We have put the batch file on a network share as well. The users have just shortcuts on their desktops to the batch file on the network share, so it's easy to update the batch file as well.
Maybe you can do something similar (let the users run the batch file from SharePoint, which copies and starts the Access frontend).
Related
I have a big Lotus Notes company database containing sensitive data and I want to prevent normal users to replicate this database locally.
Explanation of the main problems :
sensitive data on laptop
server deleted documents reappear if the purge interval is more frequent than local replications
server deleted documents reappear if users modify them locally
These solutions are NOT working in my context :
uncheck the "replicate or copy documents" in the ACL for users. If done, users cannot copy/paste content in form fields.
check "temporary disable replication" cause the application is replicated accross multiple servers
prevent local disk writing
You've ruled out all the features that are designed to help you with this, so you can't prevent local replication. All you can do is track it. There are third party products that can help you do the tracking. One of them is called SecurTrac, by a company called ExtraComm. You could write your own tracking, too, using the C API's extension manager routines, or if you don't want to write in C you could ues the Trigger Happy project on OpenNTF, which gives you some boilerplate C code that you can use to trap accesses and which allows you to call Java code to do the rest of the work of actually logging and tracking.
This does not prevent replication, but it prevents opening the database as local replica file. I have created a test database and added this code to postopen event of the database script. Just quick and dirty:
Sub Postopen(Source As Notesuidatabase)
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim server As String
Set db = source.Database
server = db.Server
If server = "" Then
MsgBox "you are not authorized to use this database as local replica file, it will close after click on ok button"
source.Close
Else
'opening allowed, do whatever you want
End If
End Sub
I have an MS Access split database and I'm trying to get it to work with the backend on a new, more secure drive on our network. I've used a UNC path for the backend location.
This database has been running without problem on another drive which is totally public to everyone in the company (~4k people, not secure) for about a year. We have a generic account for users to access the database throughout our factory and haven't encountered this problem before I tried to switch it to the new drive. I've contacted our IT department and they've given myself and all my user's accounts read/write access to the drive, but only I can run it.
Other user accounts get these problems...
All of my forms with objects bound to a table immediately throw a runtime error before even getting to Form_Load.
My userforms will run DLookup functions and execute message boxes but throw a runtime error when they go to execute a query.
I've tried using an 'On Error goto' to try and actually find the problem but it throws a runtime error before that.
I can't think at all what the problem might be. IT have told me I have the same permissions as the other users. Any suggestions on what to do?
In the front end of your DB you may have to change the path which links to the tables. The tables are in the back end of the database, which you have now moved and therefore changed the filepath. the frontend wont find them. You can delete the table links in the front end then use External data > import and Link > Access. In order to re-link the tables using their new filepath. You would then need to redistribute your frontend to the users.
I'm not sure if you have already done this, however, you haven't suggested so in your question. hope this helps, apologies if it was helpless.
I hope you have found an answer to this. I wanted to answer as well, because I had the exact same problem yesterday. It turned out that the location was referring other users back to the folder's shortcut name versus it's full length name (it is called the W drive on my computer and the K drive on theirs). I solved the issue by spelling out the name in full.
I am extremely new to Ms-Access. I have a central back end access database in server computer. And all the users have the front end user interface installed on their system.
Now, whenever I make any changes to the interface in my local, i need to re-install the updated interface on each of their system. Is their any way that i can do so that i will make the changes only on my local and it will be automatically reflected on all the users' systems.
Thank you.
Ok there are a couple of options that you can do to either fully or paritally automate this process.
Partial Automation
If you don't have a lot of users and you don't want to do a great deal of coding you can write a simple batchfile or vbs file which you set up on the users desktop as an icon. Batch file code would show the following type of information.
#Echo Off
REM Copy your file from server location to local user machine
xcopy "F:\ServerDirectory\databasename.mdb" "C:\ClientDirectory\databasename.mdb" /E /Y /R
Set this up on the users machine as an icon and whenever you want them to update their front end ask them to double click the icon. This will overwrite their client with whatever you place in the location on the server. It is advisable to create all table links to the database back end having UNC paths as well.
I have used this successfully for various applications - I make changes to the front end place in appropriate location on the server and then do a quick e-mail to people just to ask them to double click the bat file icon.
Full Automation
Programmatically set version control up using visual basic so the client checks version number of the client against a server number and if the client is not the latest will download a new version.
This is more involved and full instructions are available here.
Front End Auto Update
When you deploy an MS Access solutions like this, you need to decide whether to share the client MDB file between all users, or distribute copies to each user. It sounds like you have taken the second option. Each choice has merits and disadvantages. If you stay with the current approach, you might look at a scripting option to deploy updated client MDB files between users.
I've got an Access 2007 database that I developed which connects to SQL Server for the actual data storage. I used the Package Solution Wizard to create a distributable installer which included access runtime (with an ACCDE file) which I went around and installed on 15 or so PCs. Anyway, my question is, what is the best way to distribute updates to this database? Right now I'd need to go around and remove and reinstall. That's not a problem... I was just wondering if there was another way.
I've tried leaving the front end on a network share but it seems that most people suggest storing the front-end on the local machine, which makes sense. The problems I've run into when I leave it on a network share (at least with Access 2003 mdbs) is that I find myself needing to compact and repair often and I also have to kill the open sessions (user's who have the file open) when upgrading. I would imagine it could also hypothetically create an unnecessary bottleneck if the user was not on the local network.
Automating front-end distribution is trivial. It's a problem that has been solved repeatedly. Tony Toews's http://autofeupdater.com is one such solution that is extremely easy to implement and completely transparent to the end user.
We developed a vbscript 'launcher' for our access apps. That is what is linked to on the start menu of user's pcs and it does the following.
It checks a version.txt file located on a network share to see whether it contains different text to a locally stored copy
If the text is different it copies the access mdb and the new version.txt to the user's hard drive.
Finally it runs the mdb in access
In order to distribute an update to the user's pc all that is required is to change the text in version.txt on the network share.
Perhaps you can implement something similar to this
Make a batch file on the server (network drive).
Create a shortcut link to that batch file.
Copy the shortcut to User's Desktop.
When user double-clicks on shortcut, it will copy a fresh copy from network to local.
Replace old database.adp on the server drive when you update a new version.
Each user gets a copy of database.adp on their machine.
Remove Security warning when opening file from network share is here.
Batch File
#ECHO OFF
REM copy from network drive to local
xcopy "Your_Network_Drive\database.adp" "C:\User\database.adp" /Y /R /F
REM call your database file - Access 2007
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\MSAccess.EXE" "C:\User\database.adp"
This is a very old post and I used the autofeupdater until it stopped working so I wrote one of my own and it has evolved over the last few years into something that I have used with many clients. It's so simple to use and there is no interface. Just an EXE and a very simple config file.
Please check it out here. I can also help with custom solutions if none of the configurations work for your needs. http://www.dafran.ca/MS-Access-Front-End-Loader.aspx
After trying all of the solutions above (not exactly these solutions but these are the common suggestions in the Access community), I developed a system entirely within Access using VBA that allows an admin DB to create and publish objects to client DBs without the need for user intervention or management of multiple DB files.
This approach has several benefits:
1. It simplifies the development process by having a dedicated environment (admin DB) for development and testing totally separate from the client DBs.
2. It simplifies the update/distribution process by allowing a developer to push out updates in real time that client DBs can implement in the background, without involving users. Can also allow devs to roll back to previous versions if desired.
3. It could be used as a kind of change management system within Access for developers who want to commit multiple changes to objects and modules and retain past changes.
4. It allows for easier user access control by allowing an admin to easily assign certain objects to specific users/roles without needing to maintain multiple versions of the DB.
I will hopefully post the code to GitHub soon, I just have to get clearance from my workplace to release it. I will edit this post to include the link when I have.
We have usually kept the Access front ends on network drives, and just put up with the need to compact and repair on a regular basis. You will probably find you need to do that even when they are installed locally, anyway.
If you must have it installed locally, there are various tools which will enable you to "push out" software updates, and the guys over on ServerFault would have more information on those. Assuming such tools aren't available, the only other option I can think of is to write a small loader program that checks the local .MDB against a master copy on the server, and re-copies it across if they are different, before then launching the MDB.
I have a form that has a list box and several buttons that run sqk statements for the list box.
sub on_onClick()
' error checking
me.listbox.rowsource = "SELECT tblMain.First, tblMain.last FROM tblMain ORDER BY tblMain.Last;"
so this kinda thing is what I use for the list box. it works fine for me in the .mdb, and after i have converted the database, split it, made the .mde I go into the mde and it works fine for me still. This is placed on a shared drive
HOWEVER, anyone else that tries to use this, none of the buttons are having an effect. Can't tell if they are not working, or the VBA is not returning any results for them. It works for me, but it is not working for them. So...this is for my local LAN team, I think they all have full control permissions??? The button clicks that get them to that form are working fine also.
please help!
A couple of things come to mind:
It is not clear from your question whether the mde file itself is on a shared drive or whether the back-end database is on the shared drive and each user has a copy of the mde file on their PC. If the users are using the same mde file on the network share then I would strongly suggest not taking this approach. (It probably isn't the cause of the issue, but it will get you into trouble down the road.) Give each user a copy of the mde (front end) and have the application point to the back-end database on the network share.
Make sure that the mde has the ability to relink the tables to the back-end mdb file.If you search SO you'll probably find examples of how to do this in code.
I suspect you may be running into an issue where the mde file is not able to find the back-end tables. In this case you won't receive an error message in your VBA code when you're setting the listbox's rowsource and it will appear as though nothing is happening.
Do they have Macro security disabled? By default, MAcro security is enabled in Access and none of your VBA code will run. To disable: open Access, Tools -> Macro -> Security and set to low.
I think it is generally best to use self-certified projects or a secure location rather than change security levels.
Some information on macro security:
Self Certify projects
General information on security principals for Office code and macro security
Trusted location defaults for Office 2003
Macro security in Office 2003