Server question...

Hello,
I'm just new to this group and I'd appreciate some direction. I work in a
call centre and I have been assigned the task of doing a web based program
which will allow each agent to communicate to our scheduling department
whenever thier actual activity deviates from their schedule, such as going
on break late, attending a meeting etc.

While I'm certainly confident in my abilities to both learn and implement
what is necessary to complete the project I've never done anything web based
before, I've always worked with a user interface direct to the database as
in Access and VB. Learning another language is not an issue.

I can develop a web page to collect the data I need. I can set up a database
to process the data. What I don't understand is the connection between the
two. How does a web page get information to the database? Any tutorial that
I have found on line will go to great lengths to describe how to collect the
data, but I haven't found anything that will say how to get the data to the
database.

What is it that I am missing?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Scott

Scott Hlad wrote:

Hello,
I'm just new to this group and I'd appreciate some direction. I work in a
call centre and I have been assigned the task of doing a web based program
which will allow each agent to communicate to our scheduling department
whenever thier actual activity deviates from their schedule, such as going
on break late, attending a meeting etc.

While I'm certainly confident in my abilities to both learn and implement
what is necessary to complete the project I've never done anything web
based before, I've always worked with a user interface direct to the
database as in Access and VB. Learning another language is not an issue.

I can develop a web page to collect the data I need. I can set up a
database to process the data. What I don't understand is the connection
between the two. How does a web page get information to the database? Any
tutorial that I have found on line will go to great lengths to describe
how to collect the data, but I haven't found anything that will say how to
get the data to the database.

What is it that I am missing?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Scott

You could use cgi to take the form data and read/write info to the database.
Your cgi can be written in most any language: C, bash, perl(yuk), VB
whatever. That should make your development task much easier. You can use
javascript to validate the form before its submitted to the cgi.
Eric

Hi Eric,
Thanks for your reply. The thing I don't seem to understand is how to get
the information from the actual form directly into the database. Is there a
call from the webpage to another program etc that will transfer the data
perhaps in the submit button?
Thanks
Scotto
"Eric" <NoOne (AT) invalid (DOT) com> wrote

You could use cgi to take the form data and read/write info to the
database.
Your cgi can be written in most any language: C, bash, perl(yuk), VB
whatever. That should make your development task much easier. You can use
javascript to validate the form before its submitted to the cgi.
Eric

Scott Hlad wrote:

Hi Eric,
Thanks for your reply. The thing I don't seem to understand is how to get
the information from the actual form directly into the database. Is there a
call from the webpage to another program etc that will transfer the data
perhaps in the submit button?
Thanks
Scotto
"Eric" <NoOne (AT) invalid (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:h8CdnbIw5fFmvzXZnZ2dnUVZ_rSdnZ2d (AT) comcast (DOT) com...

You could use cgi to take the form data and read/write info to the
database.
Your cgi can be written in most any language: C, bash, perl(yuk), VB
whatever. That should make your development task much easier. You can use
javascript to validate the form before its submitted to the cgi.
Eric

Have you considered writing this app. in Ruby and the Rails framework?
For many web apps requiring database connectivity, Ruby/Rails works
great and is easy to learn - which I gather is a criteria.

To see what is possible, check out 37signals.com (no affiliation with me).

Googling 'Ruby on Rails' will get you good references, and the book
'Ruby for Rails' by David Black is a great way to get started - it both
explains 'how' and 'why' Ruby and Rails works the way they do. And all
your Javascript experience will come in handy as you flech out the
application...

Good luck!