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Hello everybody.
I hope you can help, I'm new to the forums so please be gentle!!
I work for a surveying company in the UK that collects data about office blocks on paper. (We work all over the country, sometimes in areas where there is no mobile phone reception or wifi.) The data is then manually input into an Access database via MySQL Server. It is exported into Excel for validating and manipulation, then put back into the Access for the final client presentation. All of the IT side is done on Windows (silly people that haven't found the beauty of Apple products yet.... tut tut tut)
As you can imagine, all of this is time consuming, paper consuming and very costly on printing / postage / storage. I know absolutely nothing about Servers, databases, internet connections etc but I have been trying to work out a digital way to collect the data to cut out a lot of the process. I managed to stumble my way through creating a basic Filemaker Pro database that works on my iPad which can be exported to Excel. I also have an Amazon S3 account to store data in the Cloud.
My questions are these:
Is an iPad running Filemaker Go the best data-collection combo for my needs?
How difficult is it to map the data from Filemaker straight into Access? Is it possible to learn how to do this myself so I can give a complete solution to my IT-phobic bosses?
If I used Filemaker Server (or another Server) to upload live data, will the system automatically send the information if I go from a network blackspot (mountain range) into full coverage area?
As I say, I know bugger-all about IT so please help!!
Many thanks in anticipation of any help.
I hope you can help, I'm new to the forums so please be gentle!!
I work for a surveying company in the UK that collects data about office blocks on paper. (We work all over the country, sometimes in areas where there is no mobile phone reception or wifi.) The data is then manually input into an Access database via MySQL Server. It is exported into Excel for validating and manipulation, then put back into the Access for the final client presentation. All of the IT side is done on Windows (silly people that haven't found the beauty of Apple products yet.... tut tut tut)
As you can imagine, all of this is time consuming, paper consuming and very costly on printing / postage / storage. I know absolutely nothing about Servers, databases, internet connections etc but I have been trying to work out a digital way to collect the data to cut out a lot of the process. I managed to stumble my way through creating a basic Filemaker Pro database that works on my iPad which can be exported to Excel. I also have an Amazon S3 account to store data in the Cloud.
My questions are these:
Is an iPad running Filemaker Go the best data-collection combo for my needs?
How difficult is it to map the data from Filemaker straight into Access? Is it possible to learn how to do this myself so I can give a complete solution to my IT-phobic bosses?
If I used Filemaker Server (or another Server) to upload live data, will the system automatically send the information if I go from a network blackspot (mountain range) into full coverage area?
As I say, I know bugger-all about IT so please help!!
Many thanks in anticipation of any help.
