How to sync local and web database?

[Jack Crawford]

I am wondering if their is a strategy or tool for syncing a local
database with a web-based database? Specifically I have an application
where orders are entered via a web form and the data emailed to my
client who processes the orders. I extract the order information and
update a local "order tracking" database. There are several order
processing steps. I want to update a web database to reflect the status
of the order as it flows through the local tracking application. I will
send an email to the "orderer" at the major steps, but my client wants
to have a web-based report shows the status of all orders for a company
that has pending orders. In other words a company will enter multiple
orders and will be able to track the status of the orders by signing on
to the web site. This status report gets its data from the
web-database.....which I must update from the local tracking database.
A pretty long winded explation which I hope mades sense. Has anyone
found a solution to this problem? Any reference or tools you can
suggest?

I am using MS Access mdb as the databases. Email client is MS Outlook.
Web is based on ASP.
Thanks for your responses, Jack

 

[Tom B]

Is the local tracking "application" something you can adjust?

For example, if the application were written in VB, I'd have an "update the
website" button that would call
http://theserver/updatedatabase.asp?ID=XXX&Status=XXX

and obviously updatedatabase.asp would Update the website's database.

Just one approach.

 

[Jack Crawford]

Tom, I have written the local tracking application in VBA as part of a
MS Access database, so I can "adjust it".

I was thinking about the approach you suggest. The question would be
how the updatedatabase.asp would function. Haven't given it enough
thought, but seems that most request would fall into a limited number of
"operations"?
1)add a record to a table
2)edit a field with/in a record
3)delete a record
4)other?

Seems like the asp code could have several possible forms:
a)Could be simply as sql executer? Send a sql string to be executed by
the asp code?
b) Could be a "transaction processor". Parameters would be the "Tran
Type" and the table and the datas.

Any comments and/or suggestions? Any articles or perhaps someone has
written a tool to do this? I will be working on the project over the
next few weeks, so any input would be appreciated.
Thanks, Jack