Hi,
At the moment at my place of work, we use microsoft spreadsheets to contain all of our data, as a sort of makeshift database. The reason why we do not use an access database, is because our company cannot afford the software to put on our computers. The spreadsheets are shared on a centralised server, and are laid out like so...

ID Number, Surname, First Name, Address, etc...



The problem we have is that the spreadsheets are very slow as they are getting quite large (~3000 rows and growing). Also, we could do with using queries with records, but we make do with 'Autofilter' at the moment. We could do with some sort of database system that allows us to import current data from excel, be easy to use and administer, and most of all, FREE + Fast.

Does anyone know of any such software? Thanks

James

Could you use MySQL with a web-based frontend (e.g. PHP Intranet), or even desktop app if there are the skills.

There are other free databases but their names evade me for now.

Yeah, but could you give me any examples of specific software that could do this please?

you can get the SAP DB for free here

> robert

What is your level of experience with SAP DB SQL?? I coded IBM DB2 SQL for years and might like to play with SAP if it is stable and reliable.

TIA

Basically, you would have a MySQL database running off one PC. You would also have a webserver running of one PC - this may be the same as the MySQL Server or a different PC - depending on your needs and resources. It will be faster having one dedicated database server and one dedicated webserver - but, if you only have a few thousand records and it's just a small Intranet, one machine could do both easily.

It would be very easy to get the spreadsheet into MySQL - simply save the XLS as a CSV and then import it into MySQL. I'm only familiar with MS SQL Server, but I would be 99.9% that MySQL can import from CSV, as it is the lowest common denominator for data.

It is possible that you may need to normalise your database, that is split it into separate tables to avoid unnecessary duplication of information. However, if the data you are storing simply pertains to a group of people (as your example suggests), then this may not be necessary.

You then need someone who can script some sort of server-side language, like PHP, ASP, JSP, ASP.NET, etc, to create your webpages that interact with the database.

If all your PCs are networked you can all access the webserver at the same time and also all administer the data (unlike XL which will lock a spreadsheet as read only if it is already open once I believe). The MySQL server will filter and query data much faster than XL, and the web-based Intranet allows for very quick and easy adaption of the system.

What skills does your company have?

NB: It is very possible a colleague's spotty son/daughter can script PHP like a demon, and will create you an Intranet in return for a week's supply of sweets and fizzy pop.

If you are happier with a MS route, you may be able to use their free MSDE and Active Server Pages(.NET) (ASP(.NET)) running on the MS webserver, IIS.

Thanks for all your help, but i still cant find anything that would really be of any use. I think we may just stick to the bodged xl sheets. The thing is the spreadsheets never have new records added, only some records deleted, but mostly modified. WE send out forms, and the date we send the forms out goes in the spreadsheet on each record of each form we send. Then, when the forms come back, we log each one back in on the sheet, with the date it came back. We find the records using a unique ID number (about 9 digits long) using the 'find' tool on xl. Is there anything using visual databases apart from MS access, that can help us do this kind of thing quicker, because we send out about 400 forms a week, so it is rather time consuming.

well, until now I haven't done much with it, but it looks like I'll have to take a closer look at the sap db in the near future (at work we maybe get some project where we would have to use the sap db).

Your company can't afford a single copy of Office Developer edition? With it you get a royalty free license to distribut the access runtime files. Just install the access runtime stuff on each computer and you can use an Access database. There's no need to buy a copy of Access (or Office) for each computer.

As much as I hate to recommend Access, I must concede that it is probably the best option in this case. You are exactly the kind of user it was designed for: a non-developer with very simple database needs.

On the free front, install PostgreSQL for a database; the latest version runs natively on windows. As for a frontend, in addition to pgAdminIII, I found the following:

Postgresql Forms

It may work for you, but it's a pale imitation of Access. You might be better off with a more generic web based frontend.

(A nice combination would be Access for the frontend and PostgreSQL for the backend. Much better than file sharing the backend Access database file.)