Microsoft Access

[aditogs]

BACKGROUND - I currently run an intranet which collects feedback from teachers at a uni via online form, which is manually dumped into an excel linked table/spreadsheet, and I use access to put the feedback into a query report by student (via an [Enter student name] option upon clicking report). I currently have to manually create each report (If I set up a query and report for each student, the file would be too big to run on my computer) and manually print and send out. Some students have multiple records within the table.

WHAT I WANT TO DO
After downloading the data into Excel/into an access table, I want access to automatically create and print reports for each student. Essentially I want access to look at the table, sort the data for each unique student, find out which students need a report to be created, and then for it to create a report for each student. Ideally, I'd also like to automate that all of the reports are sent to the printer. Then all I'd have to do is pack and send.

Ideas?

[lammert]

The main problem in your current workflow is that you use interactive programs like Excel and Access to do the storage and processing for you. These programs are not designed to do any truely automated work.

The best way would be to put the data in some sort of relational database (MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle or whatever is available) instead of Access. You can still access the data with your favorite programs (Excel and Access can access and manipulate data in a relational database via ODBC drivers) but these databases are also accessible by other programs like external report generators or commandline utilities that are called from batch/shell scripts.

Another advantage of these relational databases is that they can be accessed from a wide range of webserver scripting languages like ASP, PHP, Perl etc so with some programming you can also fully automate the current manual import of data from the intranet to your database.

[LifeinAsia]

Most of the same webserver scripting programs. although it doesn'r scale well. But if we're talking just a few thousand records, Access should still work fine.

Although we use MS SQL for the big number crunching components of our sites, we still use Access for several parts. Mostly becasue I've got too many other items on my plate to migrate them.