With more and more businesses turning to online meetings to save costs on traveling as well as to meet increasing globalization demands, there is a need to be able to share important information online. We will see how it is possible to share Access databases online and what should be done to protect the data.
Latest statistics reveal that many business professionals consider meetings to be a waste of time especially when they have to travel long distances to attend a few minutes of a meeting. On the other hand, there is no avoiding the fact that meetings are an important part of every business. It allows employees a chance to convey their opinions while management can keep track of important projects. The emerging solution, with the rapid popularity of the Internet and online technologies, has been to hold online meetings instead. Since small to medium businesses rely heavily on Access databases, the ability to be able to share the MDB files and the information within them during online meetings becomes very important. Of course, this also increases the chances of the MDB files getting corrupted – businesses have to ensure that the data in these files is sufficiently well-protected and that they have a quick way of being able to repair MDB files that are damaged.
Online technologies have no doubt changed the way meetings were held – they are no longer the long and expensive tasks they used to be, that would actually affect the productivity of people. Instead, online meetings are now as quick and efficient as attending phone calls. Using the Internet, one can have a meeting with just one person or a thousand people, from the comfort of one’s office. Software such as Microsoft Live Meeting makes online meetings easy to conduct and offers features that make them even better than actual live meetings. For example, this software gives participants the ability to edit files together such as Excel worksheets and Word documents. Participants can also share the information in a Microsoft Access database, though by allowing members to edit the information there is a greater chance of damage to the database. By having enough safeguards and a tool to repair MDB files handy, one can ensure that the data stays protected.
The host of the online meeting has initial control over the Access database, Access project or the data access page, from which one can edit or manipulate the data stored in the database. If the host would like the participants to have control over the database, the collaboration feature can be turned on. This allows the participants to be able to view and make changes in the database. However, only one person at a time can have control over the database. This helps maintain the integrity of the database that could be compromised if there are simultaneous changes happening in the MDB files. On the other hand, with many participants making changes in the MDB files, there is an increased likelihood of the MDB file getting damaged and some corruption creeping in. Businesses can use sophisticated Access repair tools such as DataNumen Access Repair from DataNumen to repair MDB files suspected of corruption. This tool is capable of recovering the records and the structure they were in, in the original file. Businesses can thus take advantage of the powerful technology of online meetings and yet protect the data in their Access databases.