Online database

paconnors

Hi all. I'm a member of a club and want to know is it hard to set up a online database where the committee members would have access to via a website?

Tom Dunne

It's not really that hard, as long as you know what you are doing.

But what exactly do you want to do? Without giving the specifics of the club, of course.

Do you want a webpage that allows people to log in and modify pages, that are generally text based/static? Or do you require more functionality such as tracking specific information that will change frequently?

paconnors

Tom Dunne wrote: »

It's not really that hard, as long as you know what you are doing.

But what exactly do you want to do? Without giving the specifics of the club, of course.

Do you want a webpage that allows people to log in and modify pages, that are generally text based/static? Or do you require more functionality such as tracking specific information that will change frequently?

Yes to modify the database. Usual fields name. Address. Membership type and amount due and paid. And be able to generate reports and maybe mail merge as well

Tom Dunne

paconnors wrote: »

Yes to modify the database. Usual fields name. Address. Membership type and amount due and paid. And be able to generate reports and maybe mail merge as well

Sounds like you will need to get onto a web development company to create a program/website for you.

professore

paconnors wrote: »

Yes to modify the database. Usual fields name. Address. Membership type and amount due and paid. And be able to generate reports and maybe mail merge as well

It's a bit like playing the guitar, not hard to play a few chords but hard to be a Jimi Hendrix ...

For what you want it shouldn't be hard to do. Are you going to do it yourself? If not the hardest part is to communicate exactly what you want done to someone who's going to do it. Phrases like "the usual field names" are not good. It's like telling an architect "the usual number of rooms".

Also security could be an issue if people's personal data is stored. There are strict laws regarding this. Better not to store name and address details if you can avoid it.

paconnors

If i can i will. Never taught about security though. Even though there wont be any banking or credit card details

Tom Dunne

paconnors wrote: »

If i can i will

If you are doing it yourself, you will need a web hosting package, i.e. a company that hosts your website and database.

You should be able to develop the application locally on your PC, then transfer it up to a hosted provider.

Have you much experience with web development?

croo

If you know something about software development but not online development I would suggest looking at some of the rails orientated development tools, Ruby on Rails for example. But I like Grails myself.
http://www.grails.org/dist/screencasts/screencast0.mov
Gives a very brief overview of how it might work.
You will find plenty of more screencast and howto's on that site

If you are not a developer perhaps the best thing to try is look for an existing open source solution for clubs ... sourceforge is a good place to find such
http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&words=club

You may not find precisely what you need there but you should find something that nearly does what you want and you can just tweak, which is always easier than building from scratch.

BlueSpud

I am sure there are hundreds of packages already out there that will do the trick for you, dont re-invent the wheel unless you have to.