xianz419
04-21-2011, 02:43 PM
A common challenge with custom web applications has always been customer maintainability. In most cases the admin interface is left until the last min of development when budget is short and all resources are tied up fixing bugs and making the end user experience better. Once an application goes live it's very rare to see a large commitment made to the back end admin site since the pressure is always on to make the public face better. The net result is customers need to rely on external developers to support many aspects of the site as well as deal with poorly designed and rough around the edges admin tools often requiring workarounds just to get their jobs done. Access had a great role to play here and I have used it several times in my old company to get some great results. Releaseme.ca is a small Canadian startup that helps you get our of your car lease early by matching you with someone looking to take over your lease. Most of the work was on the public facing website as they needed to create a rich and inviting user experience (Check out the cool AJAX Search). At the end of the day however they have a business to run and the back end admin is a very important component in the success of the site. Since we knew they needed a flexible,Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 (http://www.office2007-key.ca/), cost effective solution that they could extend and update without us, we created their web admin tool in Access. This allowed us to create a rich user experience and work side by side with them to make sure it matched their needs. The rich client provided an easy way to get rich ad-hoc reports, give them a powerful query engine into their web site data that they used to track order trends and sales. It also allowed them to add a CRM infrastructure around their customer database which helped support an affiliate and referral system as well as a dealer program. Now when they need to add functionality they can call my old company,Windows 7 Serial (http://www.office-2010-key.de/windows-7-key), any other access developer or as with most of my old clients take a stab at it themselves. I have never seen a VP program Ruby or C# but I have witnessed plenty creating their own Access reports and custom queries.Web Rich end user experience (for the public) Search for cars, post listings,Microsoft Office Pro 2010 (http://www.key-office-2007.de/office-2010-key), get reminders and feeds,Microsoft Office 2010 Professional (http://www.key-office-2007.de/office-2010-key), save searches and sign up for programs Web Application Content Page Access Rich end user experience (for admins) Track & report on sales and programs Process and approve listings Control web site meta info (Car Makes & Models, Engine Types etc...) Grow and manage customer relationships Manage website text content (Using the nBit ActiveX HTML Editor)Access Content Manager Modern web apps mixed with the user empowering richness of Access are a great combo. We would love to hear about other solutions to web integration from the Access community,Office Professional 2010 Key (http://www.msoffice2010key.com/)! <div