Skipper Pickle
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:51:08 -0700
i pretty much agree with Eric, but i also think you have to take into account the human factor. If you succeed in taking away your President's ability to develop his own reports (which allows him to have ownership over those reports) without replacing it with something that still allows him that ownership, you are likely to either frustrate him or disengage him from his business. Both seem like losing propositions. It sounds as though allowing him to spec which reports he'd like built won't be very satisfactory either (he has to wait for the report and your workload gets bigger). So you may want to figure out if there's a way to for him to punch a button and dump the data he wants into Access whenever he wants. Then you could consolidate the production data into a single platform, and he can still do his reporting and data-modeling the way he wants. It's probably easier to punch that "import-data-to-Access" button in MS SQL Server than MySQL. Over the long term, if you are able to mimic his reports in Flex quickly, you may be able to interest him in learning enough to create his own reports that way and remove Access from the equation. My .02, YMMV and all that. --- Skipper Pickle 972.978.5807
_____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Knipp Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 3:33 PM To: Dallas/Fort Worth ColdFusion User Group Mailing List Subject: Re: [DFW CFUG] What would you build Michael You already mentioned that you felt this would take some time so maybe you are already a believer in refactoring, but that is what I would do here. Gradually take the various applications and rewrite them in CF (or whatever you choose), using a single database platform to support the data needs. I'd use MySQL or MSSQL, depending on which one your development and maintenance team is more comfortable with. Basically that is the only criteria I would use for deciding what tools are appropriate because either MySQL or MSSQL is a perfectly reasonable choice. As far as Flex is concerned, again I would start small and grow into additional projects as your comfort level allows. Eric On 10/9/07, Michael Sumner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: This is kind of a what if. The President of our company used to be the only tech person and he loves Access. We have a half dozen Access DBs floating around - some linked, others stand alone with some of the same data. This is after I got rid of 5 that used to be used for the website. Here is a list of what we have and its primary use: MySQL - website and primary location of member records Progress - used by the ERP for member orders, AR, AP and General ledger for the company Access - primarily used to manage Vendor Program records (terms and discounts they give our members) the merchandising dept primarily uses these for their processes of managing vendor attendance to our trade shows. There are numerous reports, and forms used to update information - He uses Access as its own IDE to build apps. There is a lot of manual keying from trade show to show. There are many queries that get built and run once and never deleted - make finding the ones that are good difficult. We have to export a large quantity of this info to post to the website. MSSQL - primarily used by the document management package to house and index what used to be paper files, Its secondary process will be to house description and index information for an eCommerce module that will talk to the Progress DB. We have CPU licenses since this will be exposed to the web. Most of the DBs do connect together for a piece of information here and there. I have used CF to access the Progress backend for a PO submittal app, and to allow internal users access to update some data. The Access DBs access the Progress DB pretty heavily - the President loves to build Access Reports, and he uses it to make some updates to the Progress DB What would you use as the primary DB platform? What would you use to unify, where appropriate the applications - internal web application, Flex, Desktop Windows Development connecting to fewer DBs Not that I am looking for work to do, but I think it time to pull things together. Again I appreciate the time and the insight. Michael Sumner Nations Best Sports 817-788-0034 ext 244 817-788-8542 fax _______________________________________________ Reply to DFWCFUG: List@list.dfwcfug.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists1.safesecureweb.com/mailman/listinfo/list List Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/list%40list.dfwcfug.org/ <http://www.mail-archive.com/list%40dfwcfug.org/> http://www.mail-archive.com/list%40dfwcfug.org/ DFWCFUG Sponsors: www.instantspot.com/ <http://www.teksystems.com/> www.teksystems.com/
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