Silas MouseholdFeb 16, 2023
Your engineering team uses Excel on Sharepoint as a database. No one else on your team is a programmer. You have to replace the Excel “database” with an actual database. Everyone needs to be able to freely, easily use this database. You have only 8 hours. What do you do?
Show threadXipher

@wirelessmouse Depends on what that data actually is :P but there's a lot of generic multi-user 'database' systems that just use the LAMP stack, I've used a number of them over the years, not sure what projects are still active, but they're out there.

If the data is of a specific type, depending on what it is, there might be a great solution already built.

https://github.com/nuBuilder/nuBuilder-4.5 stuff like this exists, there's tons of them out there, some complex, some /super/ simple.

GitHub - nuBuilder/nuBuilder-4.5: nuBuilder Forte 4.5

nuBuilder Forte 4.5. Contribute to nuBuilder/nuBuilder-4.5 development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Feb 16, 2023 at 4:49pmWeb
Show threadSilas MouseholdFeb 16, 2023
@Xipher Small database. A few tables. Dozens of fields. Thousands of records. ~10 users with write access.
Show threadSilas MouseholdFeb 16, 2023
@Xipher My main challenge is the users are all accustomed to editing data freehand in Excel. If they cannot just copy/paste data in and out of the database that easily, they just won’t.
Show threadXipherFeb 16, 2023
@wirelessmouse Just create a form that lets them copy/paste the data directly, literally just show them a row/column view of the data, use the builder to add a little validation along with field types and you'll have mostly sane data no matter what people try and do.
Show threadXipherFeb 16, 2023

@wirelessmouse Tell you what.

PHPMyAdmin.

Its literally rows and columns, you can double click, copy/paste, its as basic as possible and it runs everywhere on everything :P

Show threadXipherFeb 16, 2023

@wirelessmouse What kind of data though :P

For example if someone asked for a database for managing an inventory of components... I'd say:

https://github.com/partkeepr/PartKeepr

If its 100% bespoke and nobody else would be tracking any data anything like what you are using, just use a simple database builder and have people use it, if its something people would commonly be holding data for... there will be existing solutions and they'll be far more developed than you can think up in just 8 hours.

GitHub - partkeepr/PartKeepr: Open Source Inventory Management

Open Source Inventory Management. Contribute to partkeepr/PartKeepr development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threadSilas MouseholdFeb 16, 2023
@Xipher It’s kind of like this. But bespoke. https://engineerscommunity.com/t/what-is-instrument-i-o-list/9675/print
Show threadSilas MouseholdFeb 16, 2023

@Xipher Going from spreadsheets to a database makes it an order of magnitude more difficult for engineers to work with the data set. But it doesn’t seem to add enough value to be worth the effort.

Trying to see how low I can get the required effort, but it’s challenging, so I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas because I haven’t found a workable one.

Show threadSilas MouseholdFeb 16, 2023
@Xipher Data entry is certainly part of the engineer’s job. But if I make that hard, then it becomes my job to enter the data. Tolerance for friction is low. Buy-in for a database is also low.