neet to integrate databases

[caseygreen04]

I work for a medical education company and for years we had database issues.
we currently run MS Access2007, quickbooks for accounting, and Goldmine for
marketing. originally we started working with Goldmine because they
supposedly said that Access and Quickbooks seamlessly integrated so that we
would only have input customer information once, and have product orders /
classes registrants automatically get populated in our database. After legal
battles and much frustration we settled with the fact that we were now stuck
with manually entering participants information into 3 different programs
each time which as you can imagine is extremely time consuming even for full
time staff dedicated to the task.

Does anyone know of a program that could allow our staff to only enter a
persons information once and it would populate all 3 databases? or know of
anyone that could develop such a program, or a whole new program that we
could integrate to take over our accounting needs, database needs, and
marketing database needs (we are currently using goldmine for sending out
blast emails and its extremely slow, especially on vista computers). or does
access have the ability to integrate into our website to auto populate when
an order is placed or information request is received?

Any help or direction would be much appreciated.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

First, when you make a mention of something like just plain « Goldmine »,
it's hard for anybody here to know exactly what or whom you are talking
about: a search on Google reveals a plethore of software and marketing
products with the name of Goldmine.

Second, it's quite possible that Goldmine has nothing to do with the fact
that you cannot integrate Access and Quickbooks with it. Someone has built
an Access application for you and even if Goldmine has - possibly - provided
all the tools to connect to their database, it's quite possible that's the
guy (or girl) who have wrote your Access application that is uncapable of
doing the job. Of course, maybe not but the point here is that saying that
you have an Access application means practically nothing. There is a lot of
tables - with relationships between them -, forms and modules that have been
made to build your Access application and it's impossible for anyone without
taking a deep look at it to say anything about what can be done and what
cannot be done with it.

I would suggest that you hire a local consultant who will be able to take a
look at what you have at this moment and who will tell you how to solve your
problems. Otherwise, it's like asking someone over the phone if he can
repair your car without him seeing it first.

--
Sylvain Lafontaine, ing.
MVP - Windows Live Platform
Email: sylvain2009 sylvainlafontaine com (fill the blanks, no spam please)
Independent consultant and remote programming for Access and SQL-Server
(French)

 

[Ca Da]

QuickBooks has a defined import method. So that you should be able to
set up a more automated method to import data - rather than retype it.

I am surprised if Goldmine does not have an import method too.

It is custom code and would probably be best if you can find an Access
programmer to aid you.

 

[Armen Stein]

QuickBooks has a defined import method. So that you should be able to
set up a more automated method to import data - rather than retype it.

I am surprised if Goldmine does not have an import method too.

It is custom code and would probably be best if you can find an Access
programmer to aid you.

Yes, and QuickBooks also has an API that allows more direct automation
to push data into (and pull data out of) the QB company file. It's
much more flexible and powerful than setting up imports, but (as you
say) it does require Access programming.

I don't know what automation is possible with Goldmine.

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com