Access system administrator training
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From: Bob Alston on 1 Mar 2010 16:40 Any suggestions for training, tutorials or books for access system administrator training? I built a system for a nonprofit here. He has about 40 users and thry run a bat file which copies various files then runs the front end that is a MDE. The back end is in two MDB databases housed on a Netware server. Recently, when I was out of the country for a week, the system had problems. It seems that some users could log into the system and others could not. I am guessing network connectivy problems although the sys admin says there weren't any. The other possibility is corruption in the back end. He tried to compress/repair the back end but it failed because he did not remember or could not retrive the instructions I had written on how to find out who was connected to the database, so he could get them to log out and enable the compress/repair. Compress/repair was all I did when I returned and it was up and running fine. I have since improved the documentation of what to do and had them place it in a tabbed three ring binder. I also gave them some names of local Access people to contract with in a pinch. Any suggestions on training for this guy? Bob
From: Rich P on 1 Mar 2010 17:13 Access may function reliably in a 2 to 3 user (simultaneous users, that is) environment. 40 users is not a pint sized operation. If this non profit is busy enough to have 40 users on board then they probably have the funding for a server based RDBMS like sql server and should migrate to that if reliability is important. Otherwise, they are on their own. Obviously, they have a network, and I don't imagine it is a 40 peer to peer network. If a server based RDBMS is not an option, then restrictions should be placed on Access where only 2 to 3 users can access it an any given time. This can be managed by having users log in to the application and capturing their userIDs in a table while they are active with the app. When they close out of the app their userID gets dropped from the table. The limitation is that you could have only 2 to 3 users on at a time. If this is not an option -- then again, they are on their own. Additionally, I think it is not prudent to sell someone on technology that is not suited to their needs. You have to tell it the way it is. If they are a small operation - then trying to sell them on sql server would be overkill. If they are not a small operation then trying to sell them on Access would be underkill. Rich *** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***
From: Albert D. Kallal on 1 Mar 2010 20:24 Sounds like you've built a pretty impressive and successful system, I tip my hat to you. Sometimes it's just a little bit of training issues that is needed. For example the person trying to do a compact and repair on the backend probably did not realize that all users will have to be exited before that occurs. Of course the problem really spins up difficult, as is often some user has killed their edition of Access with the task manager, or in fact their computer has frozen. (and, that user might have even launch another copy the application again). In other words even if the user exits, they still might have another copy of Access running that unintentionally still has the back end file opened. In fact you just posted the question about asking is their way to kick everybody out. The problem is is no there's not a easy way. If you go kill these groups, you'll see this and other posters and people that have cooked up solutions that will allow you to exit everybody out, but it's a little bit of effort and requires a form running with a timer (any user stuck in a dialog box of course will not be kicked out when using this approach) More importantly you have to very much stress to your support person that if they walk over to the server, and simply disconnect the users by blowing them out, some data may not be saved correctly. Remember, a server administrator can look at any file and determine which users has that file open. They then can simply can kill those connections. So, the server admin guy can very quickly and effectively detach and kill all users that were attached to opened file (you'll find a section in the control panel area, under management) They then can compact that file. The problem is that you don't want the server admin to kill those connections except as a last resort. This is very much like editing a word document, and hitting the reset button before you saved your work. In Access this type of killing of the users is far more serious issue, and can lead to a damaged file. So while you don't have an effective way to kick the users out unless you build it into your software, even worse is that a lot of system administration's people don't realize how serious of the matter it is is to simply blow out the users and reboot the server without first attempting to ensure that all users have gracefully and correctly exited the application. The system administrator can either reboot the server, or simply using the windows management tools can check which users have the file an open. they can at least walk over to those machines and have the user exited the application, or even in theory have that user reboot their client computer. I guess the issue of training here is that the server admin person has to be told and explained that it is a file share. If that file is not closed correctly by all users, then it like killing word and not having your work yet saved. So warn against detaching users using the administration tools, or forcibly rebooting the server without having people correctly and gracefully exit the client application. It's also not clear how much experience and training the current system administrator has. As mentioned keep an eye and how many uses you have here. 40 users is quite a bit, and if they don't have good computers that don't freeze, and don't have a really great system administrator, then sometimes you have to bite the bullet and move the backend data to a free edition of SQL server. You can continue using Access as the front end. I think without question 40 users is workable in Access file share, but you have to make sure everything is run very well. You can't typically have client computers freezing up very often for example. So while you save the troubles of setting up SQL server, it does mean that your environment must be set up quite well. If the client computers are not squeaky clean and very well running, and say often a number of them do freeze up and have to be rebooted, then I would suggest you consider moving the backend data to SQL server. Using sql server for the back end would eliminate the possibility of backend database corruption by users computers freezing up, and would also increase the overall reliability of the system. From a cost plan ado, one of the several free editions of SQL server would do fine here. -- Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP) Edmonton, Alberta Canada pleaseNOOSpamKallal(a)msn.com
From: Bob Alston on 3 Mar 2010 11:46
Bob Alston wrote: > Any suggestions for training, tutorials or books for access system > administrator training? > > I built a system for a nonprofit here. He has about 40 users and they > run a bat file which copies various files then runs the front end that > is a MDE. The back end is in two MDB databases housed on a Netware server. > > Recently, when I was out of the country for a week, the system had > problems. It seems that some users could log into the system and others > could not. I am guessing network connectivy problems although the sys > admin says there weren't any. The other possibility is corruption in > the back end. He tried to compress/repair the back end but it failed > because he did not remember or could not retrive the instructions I had > written on how to find out who was connected to the database, so he > could get them to log out and enable the compress/repair. > > Compress/repair was all I did when I returned and it was up and running > fine. > > I have since improved the documentation of what to do and had them place > it in a tabbed three ring binder. I also gave them some names of local > Access people to contract with in a pinch. > > Any suggestions on training for this guy? > > Bob Can anyone share whaat kind of documentation for systems administrators they typically provide with a system that is more than trivial? bob |