AEU15: Automating DSN-Less Connections to SQL Server (Peter Bryant)

This month’s session was led by Peter Bryant who is the owner of Corylus Business Systems Web: https://corylus-business.co.uk Email: [email protected] Peter demonstrated code (and some data) to enable you to fire and forget application upgrades to different networks. Just build and send the customer the ACCDE that works on your development network and have it automatically reconnect to their server and database on first run. It works with more than one target SQL Database in the system. The user then just saves that new ACCDE to distribute to users. The solution has been proven with many clients DOWNLOADS: https://www.isladogs.co.uk/aeu-15/ https://corylus-business.co.uk/april-... DONATE: If you find this session / code useful, please consider giving a donation to the Help for Heroes charity supported by Peter: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraisin... TIMES: 0:00 Welcome to this month's speaker, Peter Bryant 0:36 Outline of meeting by Peter Bryant. 1:59 Assumptions & Infrastructure 5:15 Establish connections 5:59 Four tables used to control actions: 1: Version ID / Number - check if local/backend versions are identical - use to control schema changes 6:57 2: IclNetworks - list of valid domains & SQL Server instances 8:34 3: IclDatabaseNames - reconnection info & sort order - allows easy switching between instances 9:51 4: IclReconnectDSNLess - lists all tables in each database - manages table connections 10:10 Debug form features 10:58 Explanation of DEMO to follow 12:22 DEMO - shows how app checks version and database 14:17 Database switching made easy 15:57 Qu: Steve - do you check whether server is running? Wider discussion 19:31 DEMO part 2 - step through code 24:23 Refreshing table links in code 29:06 Handling/rebuilding indexes for SQL views so the view data can be updated 34:39 Same code also used for changing databases ... 37:31 ...or changing SQL Server instances 39:48 Qu: Neil S - returning string from fields collection? Wider discussion 45:27 Post Demo notes / recap 46:51 Final summary - deployment of this approach 47:45 Future plans 48:16 Potential issues and solutions 48:49 Possible variations 49:35 List of items for download 50:24 Help for Heroes - donate at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraisin... 50:55 Thanks to Peter for today's session 52:16 Next month - change to original plan - Tom Van Stiphout will be discussing Northwind 2.0 53:10 Tom Van Stiphout outlined next month's talk followed by discussion about localization 59:49 End Credits