Part on- and part offline database?

lemon8

Hi folks,

I've come across something I've never had the pleasure of dealing with before, so I was hoping that one of you might have some good advice for me.

I'm doing a content management system for a non-profit organization. Part of the cms is of course members only, and another part is only for the content editors. Therefore we must track usernames/passwords.

They would also like to get their membership system automated. Someone now keeps track of payments by hand in an excel sheet - and since it's getting to the 1500 member mark, that getting tedious. But this info seems to sensitive to just dump online and link to the usernames/passwords information. Besides, some members don't want to be publicly known, and it would therefore be disastrous if the database got hacked/leaked.

Any ideas of how to set up an offline membership system -with all membership inof- (Acces?) and synchronize it with an online system - with only usernames and passwords, but needs to be linked and synched, in case memberships are cancelled, etc (currently MySQL and PHP, of course)...... ?

I would appreciate any advice, or anybody sharing previous experience with such a setup ! Thanks in advance !

raymie

Perhaps the simplest solution is to use the various databases export and import functions.

A better but harder solution would be to have the local database system redeveloped to allow direct updating of the internet based tables as well as it's own (but this would need an open internet connection).

You need however to ensure that a username if registered online cannot match a username if registered offline or you would get two users with the same username when you try and sync the tables.

One solution to this would be to prefix one of the systems with a specific value or gain to use online updating facilities within the offline database system.

It will however all depend on how capable you are in developing within Access/VB.

lemon8

Thanks for the reply ! Unfortunately forgot to mention that part:

Users are issued usernames and passwords, and don't automatically get them by signing up. The users who get to acces offlimits areas are paying members. Therefore the online system doesn't have to deal with new users subscribing since the person in charge of the offline system has to okay the payment, and then issues a username and password. So we won't have the double username problem, which (you're right) would be an even bigger headache.....

The ideal situation: the offline system holds a bunch of data (including payment data) and a button is pushed which synchs the online system. The online system basically just holds some (issued) usernames, (issued) passwords, user ids, and some minor preference info. If users change their username and/or password, during the synching the offline system needs be updated too.

Perhaps the simplest solution is to use the various
databases export and import functions.

That's what I was afraid of.... cause it's most often a hassle... and human error creeps in....

A better but harder solution would be....
to allow direct updating of the internet based tables

Is this feasable with MySQL and PHP? What offline database is handy to use? Are there dbs that can automatically handle synching an online database? We have no offline system developed yet, so we're still free to choose which direction we want to go... the data is now stored in Excel sheets.

raymie

Easiest solution is to run a webserver locally with PHP and MYSQL and then update the remote database as well (the connect string controls all of that).

Alternatively most if not any high level languages nowadays will allow you to open up an internet connection and punt across values to the remote database that way.

One method would simply be to have a page accepting either POST or GET parms for the user to be added.

I still you suggest that you consider the import/export options, this could be sheduled and made automatic.

lemon8

Hmm... I get the feeling this might be a little tricky for my programming experience... I'll look into the simple solution (import export) you suggested and see what the automation features are.

Thanks !