September 26, 2007 at 9:59 am
(moved from Strategies forum)
I work for a city and we're having elections in November. The previous web guy had an automated system for posting results on our web server, but he's gone, and no one knows where the code or any documentation is.
I've developed a good system in SQL Server with an Access front end for entering and tallying votes that are already summarized at the polling place level. I've also written reports in Access for displaying totals, both summary and by polling place. My problem is getting them to the web server.
I spent some time with Crystal Reports (v9) this AM and I can generate an HTML report, but it would be a lot of extra work for the woman doing the vote entry: open Crystal Report, refresh data, regenerate HTML report, post to web server. I don't see any way to automate that. I'll check out the latest version of Crystal later, I didn't want to bother installing it just yet.
So I'm thinking about Reporting Services. First, I need to tell you about our setup. We're strictly SQL 2000 right now. I can set up a 2K5 server (I'm running it on my Mac as a personal development machine). Our web server is IIS, but I don't want to install anything on it as we don't have a web admin currently: I can't risk screwing up that server. So what I intend (pending approval from our network guy and a variety of bosses) is to put a SQL 2K5 server into our DMZ, the results are entered into it via Access front end, a button is clicked and the report is FTP'd to the web server where links already point to it from our main page.
So: is Reporting Services the right tool for it? From what I see, I'm beginning to have doubts. I'm thinking about generating the HTML pages in Access, it's something that I've done before and I know I can make it work.
And here's the kicker: I need to have this up in about three weeks, I want a solid two weeks before election day to make sure everything is as close to 100% as I can get it! I can devote almost all of my time to it, so that's not a problem, but my skills in Anything.Net are almost zero, so extensive coding is not really viable.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
September 26, 2007 at 11:38 am
Your old reports for the last election, are they still on your web server? Do they point to a database that refreshes the data on the fly or are they static pages that just get reloaded whenever someone needs to change the data?
If they are pulling from a database, I'd suggest perhaps you could just point the query to a different table, database or whatnot and keep everything else the same.
If they are statically generated pages, things would be a bit more difficult, because I'd find some way to get that data and populate your web page on the fly. That way tallies can be added and updated throughout the day. Put up some sort of disclaimer that these results are not official until certified by whomever...
Basically now that I've re-read your post a few times, It looks like you already have all of your data in a central repository, correct?
Just create an ASP.net page that points to that data, upload that page to your web server and point a link at it. That should be fairly straightforward to accomplish with Visual Studio. Most everything would be drag and drop somewhat like your Access Reporting interface.
The learning curve should not be all that steep.
September 26, 2007 at 12:13 pm
We've had to start from scratch: the old system, for all practical purposes, does not exist. I downloaded the Visual Web Developer Express Edition, but I'm not making heads or tails of it. Maybe it's time to visit the bookstore. :hehe:
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
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