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MySQL ,Microsoft Access, Online Shopping Cart

Hello Experts,

Currently the organization I work for uses an access database to store customer information. We are interested in using a online shopping cart. (for some stock products) I've tested oscommerce, to implement on the current website. The shopping cart uses MySQL, should I link up the mysql database with our current access database and have it synchronize? (at a certain time during the day) (I've tested using the odbc mysql driver)
With the mysql information linked up to the access database I can then be able to create forms to show the customer information? Does mysql have a program that can create forms? I'm new to this so please bear with me.

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Bradley Haynes

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v2Media

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livinlif3

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Very good information...I read on a website, you can transfer locally stored Access tables to MySQL, then set up links in the Access database that point to the tables.(how do I go about this, is the DAO's you're talking about). (does this mean, we still could use the Ms Access database to store customer information)? Should, a whole migration to a web based database be smarter? Migrating to a web based solution, the users would essentially be logging onto the admin portion of the oscommerce shopping cart? And would it be difficult adding tables and form fields on the oscommerce default php pages? Thank you for your responses!

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v2Media

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livinlif3

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I was referring to my sales users. Sorry, I wasn't clear on that. I would want to limit access to the sales users to only the orders portion while logging on to the admin portion of oscommerce. The organization has been using the access database for about 6 years now. I'm thinking it would be very difficult to cater the website to incorporate all the forms and reports from the access database. I think plan of action is linking up the sql database to link to certain tables on the access database. Then synch up daily any customer information that may have been inputed on the website during there order process. So basically when the customer calls, the sales rep can make changes to the order through our msaccess database. There would be a huge amount of configuration to the web site?

So basically, how would I go about linking the tables in access to mysql to sync up the customer information when they order from website. I'm trying to eliminate the need for sales reps having to input the information twice. Our current website has only a form that sends email, then gets distributed. By having the customer login to website and by them typing in the information then the sales rep will not have to re-enter customer information.

What's your opinion on this.

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v2Media

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livinlif3

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Thank You Everyone for all the information. I've been using some different syncing utilities, import and export utilities, and some programs that are GUI based to create quick tables and php forms. I'm not an expert with programming but (I'm a network manager) these GUI based programs make it real easy to create a nice php driven website. I hear the general practice of importing ms databases to SQL, are by cleaning up the tables making sure there isn't any spaces in the tables and fields, and making sure each table has the correct values. Thanks everyone for your help.