Access Database - using from a mobile

[mikeprice]

Hi all

I have been asked to look at a possible solution to a problem.

The problem is that the museum/STEM place where I volunteer have a 'database' of classes that they will be running over the next few months. There is also a list of volunteers that can help out in the classes.

At the moment the lead teacher types this all up into the database - and then types it all again into an email which she sends out to the volunteers who then email back if they can/want to help. She then has to check all these emails out and allocate people to classes.

Which is daft

They would like to have a system where the volunteers can allocate themselves to classes and the lead teacher just has to keep an eye on it

 

Now - my idea at the moment is to have a central googledrive SQLite database which the Access database points to - and the staff can use Access as they do now with a few more bells and whistle. Then the GDrive can be shared with the volunteers and they can run an app which will look at the database and they can say which classes they want to help in

(clearly this needs some more control etc etc but....)

 

is this core idea

a) even possible (I have never set up an android app (yet)) - nor have I used SQLite but how hard can it be!!!

b) the best way

c) dumb because there is already an app that can do it better

 

normally I would just say I can do it then find out the problems later but for once I thought I would check it out first!

 

any help/info welcome

 

Thanks

 

Mike

Edited December 7, 2018 by mikeprice

[Ditto]

Hi all

a) even possible (I have never set up an android app (yet)) - nor have I used SQLite but how hard can it be!!!b) the best wayc) dumb because there is already an app that can do it better

a) Yes, I'm sure it's possible. A good while back, via a MOOC, I learnt about a PC based development environment that had a Android phone simulator for testing, but it was really slow. I'll see if I can track down details over the weekend. If you have a spare phone, it's probably the best way to go in case you brick it. Re SQLite - when I worked a Dev Mgr within IBM, we used SQLite on an enterprise scale application. My technical lead used it because it was, small, fast, scalable and generally just jolly good at what it does. If you know a bit about relational databases, MS SQL or Oracle, I'm sure you'll be fine

b) no idea - but it'll be fun finding out.

c) Perhaps and there may well be an app out there, but see comment b)

 

Just a another idea to chuck out there. Have you looked Google App Maker? I've no idea if it integrates to with access though!

[mavhc]

Probably easier to do with a gsheet and a gform, some gsuite scripting

 

https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/sheets#reading

 

https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/web

[Ditto]

As promised - here's a link to the MOOC I looked at a while back https://www.coursera.org/learn/android-programming

[NotSoFast]

The GSuite route would be easier I think. I set up our visitor sign in system using App Inventor and Fusion Tables. They work really well together and you can then show the data in Sheets etc quite easily if you just want to use Fusion Tables as the back end.

[Arthur]

Probably easier to do with a gsheet and a gform, some gsuite scripting

+1. I came across the following HTML/CSS/JS code that uses the Google Sheets as a database for a static webpage.

 

https://codepen.io/quinlo/pen/eQrRMM

 

Source code attached in case the link stops working.

 

sheets-api-specials-menu.zip

[NotSoFast]

Worth knowing that sheets has a cell limit (2 million I think). I have hit this with a year of signing in and out so now the sheet only pulls the last 500 records from Fusion Tables.

[NotSoFast]

Worth knowing that sheets has a cell limit (2 million I think). I have hit this with a year of signing in and out so now the sheet only pulls the last 500 records from Fusion Tables.

Well that jinxed it. Google are shutting down Fusion Tables in a year. Brilliant.

[Ditto]

Well that jinxed it. Google are shutting down Fusion Tables in a year. Brilliant.

Uncanny timing! I guess you have a year to sort it out! Looks like the next Google option would be Data Studio?

[NotSoFast]

Yes, but there's no block for that in App Inventor. I'll have to look at tinywebdb.

[NotSoFast]

Or maybe Firebase, looking at the options. Anyway, thread hijack over!