Heres one for you...

[cory]

I am looking at expanding a web/database app. The scenario is users go
online to fill out forms which are reports and the info of course goes into
the database. The issue here is that while this reporting by the user
should happen daily, because of the industry I am in, a user cant always do
this because they are so remote, so they may get to a net connection every
few days. My question is, how could a user still do their reports daily but
locally on their harddrive, and then when they are able to get to a net
connection, upload that info to the web app/database without having to
re-enter all of the info?

I am thinking of the user maybe having templates on their PC, then having
their files "sync" with the website. Is this possible and how hard is it to
accomplish this task? You could think of it in the same sense as online
banking, where some of them are compatible with Quickbooks?? and you can
press a button to download all of your account info to the right places
within the quicken software. This would be opposite, the user would be
uploading into the right fields on the web all automatically.

This is certainly one to tickle the brain a little, or maybe just
mine....lol

Any suggestions, solutions, etc are appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Steve C. Orr [MVP, MCSD]]

Perhaps a windows forms application may be a better front end for
disconnected users. Then when they are connected the application could
upload the data to a web service.

Here's more info:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices

 

[Justin Dutoit]

Steve, do you think the user could maintain an xml file on their pc using
the windows forms app, and upload the xml file for parsing on the server
using a standard file input control?

Justin

 

[Steve C. Orr [MVP, MCSD]]

I wouldn't subject most users to raw xml.
I think your app could maintain the xml file for them and upload it.
But you know your users better than I.

--
I hope this helps,
Steve C. Orr, MCSD, MVP
http://Steve.Orr.net
Hire top-notch developers at http://www.able-consulting.com

 

[Kevin Spencer]

few days. My question is, how could a user still do their reports daily
but

locally on their harddrive, and then when they are able to get to a net
connection, upload that info to the web app/database without having to
re-enter all of the info?

It's called InfoPath. You can read all about it on the Microsoft Office web
site.

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.