Databases > Using Databases

Online databases - an alternative vision

By Matt Harrison, Resource Information Centre

Matt Harrison of RIS (Resource Information Service) replies to Rory Ridley-Duff's article 'Web-Based Database applications - a dream too far' originally published in Computanews 109 (October 2000).

The aim of IT in the voluntary sector should be to use appropriate new technology to communicate information to produce better services and better outcomes for our clients. Many new technologies appear to offer potential benefits to our sector, but in practice it can be hard to realise them. I would place video-conferencing and groupware in this category. But the ability to create database-enabled web applications can lead to clear benefits. All of our projects at Resource Information Service are based on database technology which is then used as the source for our information products - websites, CD-ROMs and printed books. We are making increasing use of the web to make these databases available online. Whilst some of the limitations of web-enabled database applications that Rory Ridley-Duff pointed out in his article are real, the advantages offered by technologies like Active Server Pages and Cold Fusion more than compensate for these paper tigers.

Online publishing

At the simplest level, the web offers fantastic advantages for information publishing over CD or disk based distribution and even over printed paper. Our UK Advice Finder database is written in Delphi and distributed on CD-ROM to over 600 organisations around the country. Maintaining a quarterly publication cycle for these CDs is a major task. And we have to provide installation support for all these users. For those users with networks for example, installing and configuring software is not always straightforward. The new web-based interface at www.advicefinder.org.uk works with all browsers, requires no installation, can be upgraded centrally overnight, provides instant access to the data we research every day and also tells us what searches people make, which features they use, what organisations they are looking for - a powerful advantage. And as an added bonus the system is also faster, even over a modem link. Homeless Pages is a website providing free information about housing and homelessness information resources in London. All data is created in-house using a simple MS Access database. A more complex database written in-house (using VBA) then creates html pages for the web from the Access data and uploads this to the web on demand.

Getting interactive

But the true potential of the web is realised by interactive websites. Three of our projects illustrate the wider potential of database enabled web-based applications:

• Hostels Online
• Community Legal Service Directories
• Link client recording system

The arrival of the web and the potential to link websites to databases first attracted us in 1995 when we were asked to investigate how to use new technology to improve services for single homeless people in London.

By 1997 this was launched as Hostels Online which is made up of two databases. The first one is the public database which allows hostels to update their vacancies online and enables users to search through the full data published in the London Hostels Directory.

The second database provides on-line data inputting for the hostels database. This database is used by our staff to create and edit hostel records and publish them overnight on the public site when ready. Having online access to our data enables us to work with local partners around the UK and Ireland, where researchers employed locally can also use the database. These databases are SQL-server databases hosted by our web consultants and accessed via Cold Fusion.

Our Community Legal Services Directory database is hosted using SQL server on our internal network. To enable our researchers to manage the data we have a data inputting system designed in-house using Active Server Pages. This enables researchers on the office network to input and manage the data, but also allows people outside the organisation to see the data.

These research systems offer considerable advantages over MS Access or Delphi developed systems. They are easy to develop and very simple to deploy. The web technology provides better performance when lots of people are using the system at once (compared to either Access or Delphi). And the crucial advantage is remote access that facilitates multi-site operation and home-working.

The only area in which these systems cannot compete is complex report writing. For book-production we still use MS Access reports to create Adobe Acrobat .pdf files to send to our printers. But this is a single user task that only happens once at the end of each production cycle.

Online client information

But it is the final project in our triumvirate that best illustrates the potential of web-based database applications. Our Link system uses the Internet to provide on-line client recording and monitoring for a number of organisations. The Depaul Trust use Link to enable their 12 projects around the country to use a common central client database. All their internal management information and external reporting to funders is provided by a simple front-end.

Off the Streets and Into Work (OSW) use Link to record the work their partner organisations do to train homeless people and help find them employment. Staff working in different organisations use one common system to record all their work with clients.

As homeless people move from one organisation to another their details don't need to be entered twice and OSW gain a better picture of the work done with each person. And for the staff at Depaul Trust's Step Ahead employment training project, the system allows them to record their work once and for this data to be available to both the Depaul Trust and OSW - saving them considerable time.

Conclusions

I hope this article has given a flavour of what is made possible by linking the web to databases. Although the Internet is not a universal panacea, this technology has more real potential for our sector than Rory's article conceded. Using Active Server or Cold Fusion to build user interfaces to MS SQL server databases can provide a better, more robust environment than using MS Access. It does require programming and database experience to develop and manage such systems, but this can be achieved in-house or bought in from reliable consultants. For RIS at least, this technology provides a compelling vision of the future for information in the voluntary sector.