Real World Access (20)

One of a series of articles about where Microsoft Office Access applications have found a real-world niche.

Armen Stein's fulfillment

We started this Access application for Fluke Corporation in 1999.  They needed a way to manage literature fulfillment requests from customers, which are collected by Oracle and Onyx order entry systems.  Over the years the system kept growing:  to a SQL Server backend, multiple languages, email fulfillment, Print-On-Demand (POD), etc.  A few years ago the application took over fulfillment for Europe and South America, and just recently we added China!  The fulfillment system enables just one fulfillment clerk to process and ship over 100,000 orders per year.

Literature fulfillment is typically a very costly activity, often averaging over $4 per order.  Our fulfillment system reduced the average cost of an order to under $0.50.  Fluke estimates that the system has saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and has resulted in their customers getting the information they want, in their preferred language, faster than ever before.

Tags: Microsoft+Access, Micro-ISV

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Real World Access (19)

One of a series of articles about where Microsoft Office Access applications have found a real-world niche.

Jeff Boyce's games

A few years back, the Washington State Senior (50+) Games (WSSG) Association, a volunteer-based group, was managing an annual state-wide games/competition with a paper and pencil registration process.  Needless to say, only about 100-150 participants could be tracked with this approach.

I developed the Senior Games Management System© to help WSSG manage registrations and event participation.  As a contribution in my role as a board member of a local Games group, I provided the WSSG a no-cost license, renewable annually.

The system is designed for the novice Windows user, with generous use of Microsoft Access ToolTips™ to reduce the need for training or a user manual (both of which are available).

SGMS tracks:

•     Individuals, businesses and venues (contact information)

•     Games registrations and activity sign-up (e.g., Celebration of Athletes’ Dinner)

•     Event sign-up (e.g., 50 m Butterfly/Swimming; 100 m dash/Track)

•     Costs and payments for registrations, activities and events

•     Event commissioners (coordinators) and venues

•     Board members/officers

•     Event performance (time, distance, score)

SGMS also provides users the ability to:

•    Manage (i.e., add/edit/delete) activities and events from Games to Games

•    Identify media distribution (email) groups, to whom selected sets of participants’ results can be sent for inclusion in newspaper, radio and TV

•    Generate an annual Participants/Results “book” for distribution to the participants

•    Generate a wide range of reports, from “day of” event management to summaries for Boards of Directors

•    Generate a wide range of mailing label sets to allow informational and/or promotional materials to be distributed.

The Washington State Senior Games included over 1,500 participants competing in over 50 individual events last summer at the 2006 Summer Games.  This degree of growth would not have been manageable without an automated system.

SGMS has subsequently been licensed to over a half dozen “local” and “state” games associations across the United States.

The SGMS application is in continuous (re-)development, adding new features and functions, and improving the usability, based on feedback and requests from the various Games who’ve adopted this software, and occasionally, on my fevered imagination…

Tags: Microsoft+Access, Micro-ISV, sports, event+management

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