datbase ?

Nac said:

I have to keep records of all my scale tickets as per the DEP. I need to keep track of how much debris is dumped per county and per transfer station. I also need to keep track of how much money is spent per county and per transfer station. Also every once and a while I will get a letter from some county or another asking for a particular scale ticket so I need to be able to search the database for a date and or container number to pull up the info and the scanned copy of the actual weight ticket.

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Access will serve that purpose but will take a little more time from you upfront to learn how to use it. It's not rocket science. There are a myriad of free online tutorials out there. I tried pasting one here but I can't post links until I've made 15 posts on contractortalk... how retarded. Anyway, just google "Access tutorial". If you know what version of Access you have, add that to the search; e.g. "Access 2007 tutorial".

As for linking a file, that will get a little tricky, depending on how slick you want this DB (database) to be. You could write a little VBA code to upload these files and associate them to a certain record in the DB and then have a means of retrieving that file later (granted the files stay in the same directory of your computer). There's a thread on allexperts(dot)com talking about that. Search for "Using MS Access - Upload image" and you should find the answer by Scottgem.

You could probably pay a college kid $200 to set that all up for you.

Now, that's if you want to have a semi-automated system that you can query quickly and easily later. A much simpler alternative would be to use Microsoft Excel, which is simply a spreadsheet tool.

You could enter all of your information and even create a link to a file in a directory on your computer. To do so, simply right-click on a cell and select Hyperlink. The Insert Hyperlink dialog box will pop up. Choose Existing File or Web Page, then browse for the file on your computer. Or if you store these files on a central server, you could map a connection to that machine and browse for it as if it were a folder on your computer. Or, if you have a webserver, you could enter the file's specific URL as if you were pulling up a file on a website.

This will create a long hyperlink name showing you where the file is located and it's name. You can opt to shorten that down and make the name more meaningful by entering your preferred, custom text in the "Text to display" box at top. Then, when you click that link, the document will automatically be opened.

Hope this helps!