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How can we implement our forms application on ASP.NET?

Published: 26 Mar 2004

Our corporate application is running in Access 97. We are using SQL Server 2000 as backend. We have 9 sites/locations in USA where our application is installed. We get data through replication process, and we want to write an application which will run from a browser. Our problem is we have Access forms where we write data in bound text boxes and print them on prepared forms so the data writes to the blank areas. Due to data size restrictions, we have spin buttons to can shrink or expand the text font size on forms and save that size in the database (every thing is bound). It automatically saves the data and its font size in db for later use so that after replication we can print out from our headoffice and serve the clients. Now my question is do we implement this thingy in ASP.NET? Is there a better way than what we're doing, or any third party like Adobe Forms, etc. that will do this?

Access gives us lots of functionality on the client side like tabstrip, clients personal settings, find file, ld data, etc. But we do not want to install this software or every machine. We would like to set it up so that any user can use login and go to prepare documents and get printouts from any place. We don't have a team; I'm learning ASP.NET. I have worked on ASP since last two years and serving our clients for reporting purpose only, but they need Forms (filled with data) from the Web.
It is difficult to get a complete sense of the workflow requirements of your application from your question, but if you are looking for a way to distribute a light-weight, rich, form-entry experience, InfoPath may be perfect for your solution. If your users have installed Office 2003, InfoPath comes with it. Although I don't know of any "InfoPath readers" today, since InfoPath data forms are XML-based, you could probably roll your own. For deployment, you can host an ASP.NET application that provides users with a portal where they can download these forms in a single click. The form can include logic to automatically post data to a Web service, store in a local database, or store in a local XML file. Forms can also be designed in a printable format.

For a short introduction to this concept see the following link:
http://www.dotnetdashboard.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=90

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