Where should I start?
I have been asked to develop a website for someone who has a game already being played regularly by about 150 'members'. They want each player to be able to enter their selections via on on-line form (there are a large number of selections to choose from), and then to submit this (along with their membership details). This information then needs to be exported into an Excel document. I haven't done any database work before, but I know one would normaly use something like MySQL or at least Access, however there are some complicated formulars which need to be applied to the data, and they have used Excel for this for 15 years (and aren't keen to change now!). Where do I start? What must I consider?
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Busy posted this at 20:52 — 18th March 2006.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
excel can be imported into MYSQL but as a text based doc, you'd have to use PHP or recreate the formulars.
You say it has to be exported into excel but nothing about info being displayed. You could do it two fold, import data into MYSQL database (for safe keeping) then export the info to you as a .cs? (comma seperated something - forgot the last word), anyways this text file with all the data can be imported into excel.
you could cut out the database and just create the text file but being safe with back up is handy
Paul Lyons posted this at 16:45 — 19th April 2006.
They have: 4 posts
Joined: Apr 2006
So often people get tied to excel or worse FileMaker without realizing that there are so many better ways.
The first thing to do is to model the database.
List all the fields in this excel doc and figure out the best table structure.
At a minumum each user would have one record for there account.
A "user" or "directory" table which would relate via an ID or username to the records.
Search for sites on data modeling or pick up "data design for mere morals" by hernandez... a great book for starters.
it sounds like the projext needs to get to the next generation.
best of luck
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kahouty posted this at 23:29 — 20th April 2006.
They have: 9 posts
Joined: Apr 2006
Yes. MYSQL is the way to go with this sort of thing. And the above is all good advice, modeling the db...setting up a unique 'ID' for each user and adding the tables and columns from there. It would be way easier to set it all up as a nice web form and output it all in a nice 'format.php' page. In most cases excel is going to be a crutch compared to what you CAN do with php and mysql. Look into some possibilities and maybe present them to the 'client'. Theres always a better way to go about things imo.
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