has anyone here used OpenOffice Base?

[Kuciwalker]

I would be more inclined to do this more programmatically, is all.

I would too, but my work has to be easily transferable to other people in the firm, who are not programmers.

SQL Server supports exporting to Access, IIRC. Is the file just CSV? If you have standardized formats, I'd whip up a SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) project in C# to transform the data as needed and load it in SQL server. Then use a real SQL IDE to do your work, and when done just export the DB to Access format.

The whole point is that we don't have standardized formats - not even remotely. Every single insurance company has their own database layout for their claims - many have multiple layouts - and employee data from clients (often just dumps from their payroll systems) is even more variable. A large portion of our clients are municipalities - you can imagine.

[Kuciwalker]

Also, it would be absolutely insane for us to try to set up a centralized system to put all of the different claims databases we get in, and all of the different employee data. For one, we'd have to set up fairly detailed access rights because all of the health stuff is covered by HIPAA. For another, almost none of these databases are supposed to be persistent - in fact, they are almost always treated as read-only.

(Frequently the employee data doesn't even need complicated transformations - Access is just the only convenient tool usable by non-programmers for formatting the data for import into our valuation software, and for running sanity checks.)

[onodera]

You're stuck with Access, then. Also, tech forum taking it in the ass

[KrazyHorse]

Well, I guess that intenational important insurance copanies has learned such things. Wonder what kind of company Kuci are working for - it must be a major since KH and Kuci apparently has common fellatio

Is this supposed to make some sort of sense?

[MikeH]

The point is that (3) is a ****ing pain in the ass in Access because it's a godawful IDE. But I don't want an IDE to manage e.g. a MySQL server running on my computer, because then if I have to share my work with anyone else in the firm it's much more complicated than just giving them some data files and the Access database with the links and queries.

You don't have a server?

[Docfeelgood]

Asher has given me good advise.