Automating Get External Data >> Import

[justin.alford]

I am looking for a way to do the following automatically when MS Access
is opened, either via VBA or Macro - does anyone know if this is
possible?

I have a distributed client MS Access "application" that is pointing to
one "data" Access file via Table links. (i.e., I have split the app and
the data). Each client therefore has their own local copy of the
application (rather than everyone using a shortcut to one version of
the application file).

As I make changes to the application, however, I would like to
propagate them out to the users with minimal user interaction. In the
past I have used coded this by prescribing specific folder structures
on the client side and wrote some code to transfer files to their local
folders, rename files, etc. I *could* do that again if worst came to
worse but I would like to avoid it.

What I ideally would like to do is when the user opens their client
application, to (via VBA) open a "server" version of the application
(which would represent the current "version") and parse through the
objects (e.g., Forms, Reports, etc) and determine what has changed
(perhaps via the Tag) and perform the equivalent of the "Get External
Data" >> "Import" feature and bring over all the new/updated objects
into the client version of the application -- thus making it
up-to-date.

Is there any way to access this "Import" feature programmatically??

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Justin,

IMHO it's much simpler and safer to distribute the new version of the
front end in its entirety instead of trying to update individual
objects. For one thing, it avoids any problems that might arise when
trying to update objects in a corrupted front end.

I usually use a batch file that downloads a (guaranteed intact and
latest version) front end from the server every time the user launches
the application; but there's a more sophisticated solution for download
from http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm