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

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

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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 (AT) msn (DOT) com

Bob Alston wrote:
they typically provide with a system that is more than trivial?

bob