Back End Confusion

[Robert T]

I'm not a beginner, but there are some things about Access 2003 that I find
confusing. One of them is a design using a Front and Back End. We have a
database at work that tracks student registration. I split into a Front and
Back End about 6 months ago. The Back End is located on our J drive. When we
back it up, we back up both the front and back end.

However, if I try to open the backup on my home computer, it cannot find the
J drive and therefore it will NOT open. It appears as if the J drive is hard
coded inthe backup. How in the world do I get around this issue? What good is
backing up the data if I can't open the database at home?

Today my co-worker couldn't get into the J drive so he opened the database
and entered data from the F drive. Nonetheless, all of the data properly went
into the back end on the J drive. That's what I would have expected, but I'm
not sure I fully understand that.

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

You can use the Linked Table Manager to remap the linked tables in your
front-end to the correct location.

I'm not quite sure I follow what your co-worker did. First question is are
both your front-end and back-end located on the server? They shouldn't be.
Only the back-end should be there: each user should have his/her own copy of
the front-end, ideally on his/her hard drive.

 

[Robert T]

:

[You can use the Linked Table Manager to remap the linked tables in your
front-end to the correct location.]

Are you referring to my home computer? I ask that because everything works
properly at work.

[I'm not quite sure I follow what your co-worker did.]

The J Drive was not accessible so he had a copy of both the front and back
end databases on his F drive. He entered new data and somehow it wound up in
the back end on the J drive. I don't know if that explanation helps.


[First question is are both your front-end and back-end located on the
server? They shouldn't be. Only the back-end should be there: each user
should have his/her own copy of the front-end, ideally on his/her hard drive.]

OK, that might be the key to my confusion. I'm not quite sure what you mean
by their own copy of the front end. There are 2 files on the J drive:

registration.mdb
BackEndregistration.mdb

It sounds as if the source of my confusion is the fact that everyone is
sharing the same FRONT end on the J drive. Is that correct?

How do I solve that problem? What do I do with the registration.mdb front
end? Do I email it to each member of our team?

If that is the case, what should they do on their end?

I hope I'm asking the right questions.

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Robert T]

Doug:

I think the light bulb finally came on in my head and I understand what
you're talking about. I updated the front end this morning and emailed the
new version to every member of our team with the following instructions.

1. Delete the old version of registration.mdb.
2. Copy the new version of registration.mdb to your local C drive or your F
drive.
3. To access the database, simply open registration.mdb on your C or F drive.

If I understand this correctly, when they open registration.mdb on their
local hard drive, it will be linked to the back end mdb on the J drive. We
don't need a copy of the front end on the J drive.

Is the above correct? Did I finally get it?

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Jeff Boyce]

(PMFJI)

Robert

What you described sounds like it will work ... ONLY IF every single user
has a "J:" drive/share mapped the same way.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP

 

[Robert T]

Jeff:

In this specific case, we're all members of a team that use a shared J
drive, so it should work.

But what would I do if there were other members who needed access to the
database who don't have access to the same shared J drive?

Robert

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

They need to have access to folder where the MDB exists. Is your question
about what happens if their J: drive isn't mapped the same way? You can
change how the linked tables point to the back-end database to use a UNC
(\\server\share) instead of a mapped drive. To do this, instead of
navigating to the back-end through the mapped drive letter, you map to it
through the Network Neighborhood, or My Network Places, or however your
operating system refers to network locations.

 

[Robert T]

Doug and Jeff:

You guys were terrific and did a great job of clearing up a cloudy issue in
my mind. As I see it now, it seems sooooooooooooooooo obvious.

But for whatever reason or reasons, I couldn't see that before. I had the
front end on the shared J drive because I thought it would make updates a
piece of cake because I didn't have to worry about distributing those updates
to our team members. But now I realize that was a big mistake!

Thanks guys,
Robert

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Take a look at what Tony Toews has at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm for an easy way to ensure that
all users always have the current version of the front-end.

 

[Robert T]

Douglas:

Thanks for the heads up, however, I don't think I know enough about Access
yet to use that kind of utility. For now, I'll just email the updates to our
4 team members.

Robert