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pinky33
06-02-09, 03:12 PM
I will try to explain as best I can how and what we are trying to do where I work. The building I am in is government owned and the people that work hear know nothing of networking so the setup I have to start with is not that great. I can tell they just kept adding switches and hubs as different people used the building. Makes me angry to see how some people go around and add to the problem instead of fixing it.


So there is a computer (HP store bought) that is in the LAB. It is full of excel files that are constantly being updated by scientists in the lab. Because the info is only on one computer there sometimes creates a waiting period for people wanting to update there data onto the one computer with said file (excel spreadsheet).

Everyone at work also has there own office with there own computer, most running vista.

I am going to set it up so that the one LAB computer (HP) that has the excel files is shared. And set up so that the files can be edited (read and written too).


MY question FOR YOU


There is an excel file that is updated by many people all day. For now it works fine that each person takes there turn on the one computer and that file is edited and saved by one person and then the next person does there thing. Hence the file is constantly being updated and saved slowly.

If I were to share it over the network what if two or more people opened it and then saved it. Would it only save one of the persons changes?

Example,

Bill is on his computer in his office and opens the excel file that is running off the LAB PC. Bob opens it 2 seconds later in the same fashion (his computer in his office). Bill saves the work to the LAB PC and then goes home for the day. Bob saves his work to the LAB PC 2 seconds later......would it not just overwrite Bills newly saved work????? I mean when Bob originally opened the excel sheet it did not have Bills new data as Bill was in the middle of adding it at the time.

Please tell me if this makes sense.

gangaskan
06-02-09, 03:27 PM
if you want multiple people on a spreadsheet its best to do a MS access DB. the problem with excel sheets is just that.

when you open the excel sheet it will lock it exclusively to you, and you only. others will open with a "read only" copy. you can choose the option to merge the 2 later during the initial phase, however, i haven't tried to attempt this on a live sheet.


with sharepoint you might be able to accomplish this, however, that costs $$ the easiest way would most likely be a custom access DB if you want to just keep numbers in tables, also, you can gussy up reports and such.

Mayonati
06-02-09, 07:41 PM
As gangaskan said, it won't let you do this. Opening the sheet locks it to you, the next person to try and open it will get an error.

You could try sharepoint, but also I believe that there are free implementations on SQL that could be used, and I'm sure they can manipulate existing .xls files. Also, I'm not sure as the the details (I'm a networker, not a database engineer), but it seems that Oracle has some open source options too:
http://oss.oracle.com/

Hope this helps :D

pinky33
06-02-09, 08:18 PM
Thanks guys, that all helps a lot.

VinnyTAMU
06-03-09, 07:40 AM
Might look into setting up a Subversion server http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(software)

gangaskan
06-03-09, 10:28 AM
Might look into setting up a Subversion server http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(software)

looks to be free too :thup:


i still think a access DB will be the best thing to use you can make something crude and quick and it will work the way he wants it too. (presuming he has access that is)