Jauronimo Posted January 30, 2020 Share Posted January 30, 2020 Hello tech nerds of TBD! Thanks to my boss, I have the pleasure of building a shared database and workflow system and my only resources are people less tech savvy than me. Needless to say since I'm starting a thread on OTW, I am officially desperate for help. The goal is to leverage our nationwide workforce of about 100 junior pukes and have them enter transaction data to a shared database during their downtime. We have a decade or so worth of completed analyses each with transaction data we would like centralize and analyze. Actual data visualization and analysis will take place in Tableau. My job is to organize, facilitate, and lead the effort to compile the data as accurately, efficiently, and timely as possible with a view on maintaining a live/current database moving forward. So far I have a rudimentary database setup in Access and Sharepoint site. What I need is a document library/repository to contain the few thousand completed analyses (each analysis is an Excel file and represents a record which needs to be manually uploaded to the database) and a work queue to distinguish between records (analyses) which are New and need to be entered, In Process, or Complete. In Process and Complete records would be moved out of the central repository so I don't have 20 different idiots entering the same record. Newly completed analyses would be uploaded to the repository and default to New. Document library is fairly simple but I have a had zero success with slapping a work queue on top of it. Example: Mary Jane in the San Francisco office has no work assigned this week. She logs in sees 900 "New" analyses in the work queue. She looks at the top of the list and selects the first record, changes the status from "New" to "In Process". This item no longer appears in the queue as available. She begins the soul crushing exercise of manually entering data into Access. 20 minutes later she is finished and changes the status from "In Process" to "Complete". She repeats the process and is rewarded with hours which count toward her Utilization target and delays her dismissal from the firm. Poor kids all over the nation will be suffering the same fate at the same time until we are current. I would like to accomplish this task within the Microsoft suite if possible (Sharepoint, Power Apps, Access) but I am open to suggestion. If I can set up a minimally viable prototype and not completely f@#% the data up in the process, I am confident that I can secure funding and get someone who actually knows what they are doing to come in and make my pile of crap a professional looking operation. Thanks in advance. How f@#$ed am I? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted January 30, 2020 Share Posted January 30, 2020 Is Mary Jane hot? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jauronimo Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 19 minutes ago, KD in CA said: Is Mary Jane hot? Shes a public accounting 9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted January 30, 2020 Share Posted January 30, 2020 5 minutes ago, Jauronimo said: Shes a public accounting 9. Actually, I recall the first 2 years in public to be chock full of top shelf talent, but somehow they all melted away, presumably to marry investment bankers. By the time you got to year 5 it was a horror show. HR and Marketing have always had a much longer runway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 SQL server with an HTTPS front end Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jauronimo Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 14 hours ago, /dev/null said: SQL server with an HTTPS front end Quote Thanks in advance. How f@#$ed am I? In other words, completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gugny Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 On 1/31/2020 at 10:36 AM, Jauronimo said: In other words, completely. Have you looked into Salesforce? The process you're describing is similar to that of our Client Services team, as well as our largest client. They use it to identify "cases" or "transactions" that are either (simplifying, here) open or closed. They're able to add data for cases that are open, schedule systematic reminders and their managers are able to run reports to show who's doing what, as well as identify any cases that have been open for too long. I've used Sharepoint and Salesforce, but I've only scratched the surface as far as what they're capable of. I find them BOTH to be a major pain in the ass, but that's more likely something between my chair and my keyboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Hammersticks Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 Depends. Is your Flux Capacitor able to generate 1.21 Gigawatts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxx Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 On 1/31/2020 at 10:36 AM, Jauronimo said: In other words, completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snafu Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 ^^^^^ SQL-2003, huh? I’m no tekkie. Is that the gold standard SQL? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 On 1/31/2020 at 10:36 AM, Jauronimo said: In other words, completely. You might be able to kludge something together with Access. But only as a short term bandaid. Access wouldn't scale well with 100 users working on a decades worth of data. You'll just end up having to re-engineer it using SQL and then have the added headache of migrating data in from the Access kludge. Do like gugny suggests and shop around for existing software or services that might meet your needs. If you have to develop a custom solution, bite the bullet and contract it out to a reliable SQL and web developer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 On 1/30/2020 at 11:06 AM, KD in CA said: Is Mary Jane hot? Does she burn? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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