Tony and all,
My apologies for my confusing email.
I am taking an internship in the federal government. However, this
internship is in a division that is not related in any way with my education
or either with my previous work experience. My supervisor is not on the
position to decide to use an Access database since it is not her area of
expertise. She wants to organize the information that her office managed.
This office manage the award for the employees of this federal entity.
Supervisors and managers submit to this office PDF files with the
information of employees that they are nominating for an specific award.
Some times these PDF has to be return to the senders because the PDF has the
information uncomplete or with typing mistakes. Moreover, the location of
data on separate PDF files makes extremely difficult for her employees to
verify or take the information in a organized and accurate fashion.
So, she knows that I had some experience coding years ago. Additionally, in
my area of education I know a little bit about quantifiable information that
she needs as outcomes from this project.
She asked me to develop a system that would let supervisors and managers to
submit the information with an automized way that will verify that all data
on the form is complete and accurate. Additionally, she doesn't want anybody
copying and pasting information from the PDF since there are also a lot of
human errors.
Lastly, she also wants to get some statistical reports that are the less
complex part of this project.
What is the problem. I am looking for a way to collect this information in a
automize way from the supervisors and managers directly to a database.
During the day I found 3 or 4 possible paths to take.
1. Is Developing an Access database and putting it in a share folder.
However, it might not be the best choice since the number of people
accessing the database is unknown. Moreover, it will require some coding,
testing and I only have 3 months to finish this project.
2. Using Share point and using a share point survey form. It will be
able to create reports and even transfer the data to another platforms.
However, I am not sure which are those platforms and how accessible it could
be.
3. Using Microsoft Excel online forms. This is the ideal choice
because, I will be able to create the data reports on excel without mayor
problem. However, Microsoft will be taking this software away very soon.
4. Using Microsoft Forms. This is the solution that will replace
Microsoft Excel forms and it appear to be much better than the previous
solution. Nevertheless, Microsoft Forms is not able to transfer the data
automatically to an excel file. It will be something that should be done
manually. Nevertheless, I have no idea about the accessibility of this
platform.
She doesn't want to expend a penny, and the resources available are very
limited. I don't have any development platform or database management
platform available. Request it could take weeks and time is a scared
resource now. Additionally, I might lack experience on those platforms. So,
learning is something that also is going to require time and testing.
If you have any additional idea, or which of these previous options could be
the best solution?
Thanks to all,
Pablo
5.
6. AFrom: Tony Malykh <anton.malykh@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 9:06 PM
To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; pablocmd2014@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [program-l] How to proceed, please I need some advise
I don't see a clear question in your email, so let me try to answer your "I
am not sure" questions:
I am not sure what type of database to use,Since this is your internship, I would expect your manager to figure out
I am not sure if Access will allow me to use a database of a type withthese limited resources.
I am not sure if the creation of Access forms is going to be accessible,Accessibility is a tricky point. Did you discuss your accessibility needs
I am not sure if using the access database I would be able to pull out thedata to create statistical reports with excel or if access is able to create
