Question

I was asked to created a program to calculate commissions for employees and supervisors (% of employees commission) based on sale logs that the employees would input into a “form”. Should I use Access to build this? Multiple users will be using the same form during the day (inputting their sales) at the same time. I also need to make sure that they can’t see any other form, report or table than the ones I want them to see. Each user needs to have their own log in.

Side questions as I work with this terminal: Access 2007 is extremely slow when I’m in anything else other then design view. Why would that be?

Answer 1

My first programming job about 18 years ago was writing a visits booking system for the prison service, this was all done in ms access. I used it for over a decade after, and only recently moved to c#/.net.

Access is fine for your requirements. I suggest you learn at least the following:

• the basics of database normalisation, and how to design related tables
• how to split data and front end in msaccess with linked tables
• securing both access databases with the workgroup information file and user level security
• creating an encrypted .mde file to distribute the front end to your users
• keeping a copy that isn’t an encrypted mde!
• basic form design
• filtering records using the CurrentUser function, and using the same as a field default.

A good book or two will cover most of these.

Your big problem is that you are dealing with confidential data while on your learning curve. Your management must understand that it takes a lot of experience to properly secure something, and very little to get through a hole that has been left open. They need to accept this risk.

As to your side question, no idea. Make it a separate question and provide a lot more detail, and you might get an answer.