scooby_doo_do Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Hi chaps, Brother-in-law has got his own gas engineer business but wants to ideally have some kind of database or program that can store all his customers details, previous jobs etc, and put up reminders for when they are due a service etc.. Sounds pretty easy... Having a quick look around, but i've not found anything that looks "easy" to use.. any thoughts? thanks in advance. Craig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideexitsupra Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Should be fairly simple to do this in MS Access or any relational database. One table for customers One table for jobs including service dates One query to show all services completed 50 to 51 weeks ago to act as a reminder. I am no Access master but could probably knock this up in half a day. I'm sure others may be along with more eloquent solutions and possibly even offers to set it up??? I know a guy who is a trained database analyst who might be prepared to do this for a fee? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul R Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 I hear progress is a good database? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snooze Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 Starting a small company these days, I'd be very tempted to base it around the Zoho suite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attero Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 http://www.salesforce.com Without a doubt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 A database like the one you describe tends to be the standard example books use when teaching you how to build and use databases. If you don't have much experience of databases but still want to build your own (should be a simple database to build), then this is worth bearing in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 http://www.salesforce.com Without a doubt. We're just implimenting this with our legacy system... it looks pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 Where abouts in essex are you? I work for a maintenance company and we use an access database for all of our customer records. If you're not too far away I could probably bring you a blank copy that you could use. You might have to add to it for servicing reminders but other than that it should be perfect for what you need. If you're interested send me a pm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I'd agree about the salesfarce thing. Otherwise mongoDB all the way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attero Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I'm a Salesforce developer, so if you need an app built, let me know and I may be able to cater to your needs (for a price of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 More for the benefit of the OP really, but what advantages (and disadvantages) does SalesForce have against a home-brew MS Access database for a simple database such as this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snooze Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I'd agree about the salesfarce thing. Otherwise mongoDB all the way lol - I'm a huge Mongo fan, but I'm not sure it fits Craig's "easy to use" requirement! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snooze Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 Good question, Stevie - the benefit of the online stuff like SalesForce and Zoho is a (theoretically) simple setup - just go online and register and away you go. You then have access to your system globally (or "in the cloud" if you want to partake of the latest b***shit buzzword!), through a familiar (web browser) interface. It's also an off-the-shelf CRM system, which means it should be simpler to set up than building your own (albeit simple) Access store, and if you want to partake of any of the add-on functionality they provide as your business expands, it should be relatively simple (but be wary of incremental costs - especially with SalesForce). That said, the online tools often take as much configuration, tweaking and maintenance as a local installation and set-up anyway. Unless you desparately want access to your data from anywhere, or expect to expand rapidly, I would suggest it's down to how comfortable you are with Access. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 lol - I'm a huge Mongo fan, but I'm not sure it fits Craig's "easy to use" requirement! Feh, the 6 OS I run for work are all CLI driven Then again I consider MS Access not exactly 'easy to use' either - then again I haven't touched it since I think 1994-ish at school? But hey, Mongo would scale at least if he er... expanded his business probably quite rapidly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attero Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 Salesforce is great. It's a CRM that has has complete control over customisation and allows you to run the business exactly how you want it. It also works in a similar way that a smartphone would in the sense that apps from an app market (AppExchange) can be installed. If that isn't enough, most apps have the ability to also be customized exactly the way you want it. And you don't need to worry about servers, maintenance, uptime, backups, etc. It's all done for you and it just gets better and better every quarter-term with each new upgrade they open up to all of their customers at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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