Well it's complicated to me anyway! Ok, firstly - apologies if this is in the wrong section. I was torn between databases and programming. Basically - I sponsor a charity website (pay for hosting, build, maintain, SEO the site etc). They have come to me and asked me to create the following "process" for some auditions for a production they are doing. This is the process they have asked for: 1. Visitor fills in form selecting providing three choices of dates and venues for her audition amongst other things (the date/venue thing is important for later on) 2. Form data is passed to Access database (I think they are using the wrong tool for the job here) 3. Administrator allocates audition slot using "the database" lol front-end required. Arrrgh 4. Autoresponder sent to visitor thanking them and providing link to payment gateway (paypal or similar) 5. Visitor pays or takes no action 5a. Email automatically sent on a specific date if there is no response 6. Visitor pays at gateway 7. Payment is automatically noted by database (i can't see how this is possible if we are using a paypal style merchant) - audition is confirmed in database 8. Database sends out confirmation of audition. <ends> In my humble opinon - this is 1. Not worth it 2. Not possible (at least for free and with access) as I think it's the wrong tool for the job. A php app could possibly handle this but I am not a programmer and can't write databases! They were proposing that the Access database would be supplied by someone else - but I can't see how an Access database can have the intelligence to recognize when an "audition slot" has been taken up and not to send it out again in the period after requesting it and it being taken (i.e - double booking the slots). Not to mention the complications of getting the damn thing to work. I was about to tell them it isn't going to happen unless they spend the money hiring a programmer to write an application that can do this process - which is obviously not an option because they have no money! I was going to suggest a simpler (just respond to forms over the phone you lazy sods) solution, but thought I would see if I can pick some brains first as to whether this is going to be possible and for some advice. Any advice and comments appreicated. This process can be changed, it's not set in stone so any creative suggestions would be great also - as long as the end result is the same. Thanks.
Okay no replies to this one yet..So my views being that 1)Access no idea have use mysql and probally no incline to use it sorry. 2)What is the charity website...????Seems strange one for a charity and auditioms. 3) Payments & Databases not really aproblem with Paypal using their system (IPN, PDT) both provide details or payments made. 4)Booking slots via a db not that hard unless all the vars are vast i.e large number or venues/dates/times etc... Basically not a very complex program to an extent for the worthiness of writing a custom script really depends on the number of people to use it.
Access can do what you're describing - the only real problem is that if your site gets busy and alot of queries are running on the DB, or if you have a "large" amount of data to query, you will start to see a considerable increase in load time - as the database will become your bottleneck. this is why people prefer mysql - it's a true "server database" and is much faster, and much more robust. However many sites run just fine off of access. If you're talking access, then you're no doubt talking IIS, and thus asp. One common misunderstanding people often make is to assume that in order to use mysql, you must use php. this is absolutely not true, mysql will work with asp just fine, and requires no additional monetary expense. You might seriously consider using a more robust db for the job (you seem to already know that though ) Read up on paypal pro, they do have an API that enables you to integrate the payment process into your website, and update your database exactly as you're describing - i.e. notifying the database when an order has been paid for etc. Autoresponders, confirmations and the like - piece of cake. really just a few extra lines of code on your DB update/insert pages, check with your host to see what mail handlers they have installed for you to use.
I'm now accepting quotes on getting this done professionally. Please see this thread if you're interested: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=50250 Thanks.