Workflow/data manipulation tools better than MS Access

[Olly]

thanks for replies guys...re the Microsoft FIM suggestion. We've chosen Sailpoint as our IAM solution, I'll be developing and deploying that over the next 3 years.

As far as re-inventing the wheel by not wanting to use Access I don't quite follow.
My experience with Access (which is fairly extensive) is that it's hard to achieve a slick look and feel and that linking it up to data sources, for example a date stamped email that's sent to a certain address daily is far from trivial.

Also the "libraries" if you like, of tools other people have written don't seem to be suitable.

As it stands, I'm working out all the logic in Access, did 5 or 6 hours on it yesterday. When I get it so I'm clear on the mechanics then I'll need to see how Joget and alternatives can be used to transform it into something slick the team will want to use.

[Lockhouse]

Access. It talks to anything and you can build screens double quick. That's what it's for, why reinvent the wheel?

[vetran]

Wheel for re inventing:

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager | FIM | Features

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager | FIM | Benefits

last I looked ~ £10-20k honestly its too cheap to mess about.

HP etc do similar.

work out the cost of password resets / provisions and it will pay for itself in 3 months on any site > 1000 users.

If you are subject to SOX it will cover that

plus you get full integration with MS applications.

Get some costs, walk them through the approval videos and explain you need to write some interfaces to their highly specialised solutions.

[DimPrawn]

Perhaps this sort of thing?

Overview : Joget Workflow – Open Source Workflow Software and BPM Software

There's a free community edition that has no support or an enterprise version that has support.

[Olly]

What about purchasing a simple PAAS type subscription product? How much do you have to spend?

....nothing this is about building a working prototype/tactical solution to convince glacial paced management. This solution MUST be internal, cloud solution is appropriate. Too many hoops to go through.

Prawns list of tech isn't much help I'm afraid, this is about identifying something(s) "better than MS Access". I don't have the skills or time to learn have to build a website from scratch for this.

Looking for something with workflow, multiuser logon, audit, user reporting interface, auto email generation etc etc built in. Maybe I can even one day link it to the Quest ARS APIs to actually do the account creation in AD / Exchange.

[MarillionFan]

What about purchasing a simple PAAS type subscription product? How much do you have to spend?

[DimPrawn]

These days probably knocked up using some free tools, PHP, MySQL, Apache or an ASP.NET website with SQL Server Express backend.

[Olly]

I usually use MS Access to build tools for small teams to use on projects but these days I can’t believe there’s not something slicker out there….is there?

We need to set something up to assist with account (Active Directory, Unix etc) administration. They process joiner, mover, leaver and add and remove access requests and are drowning. Add attestation/recertification to the mix and their s/sheets and manual workarounds mean the team’s only ever chasing its tail and never improving.

We need something that can import text files build query and manipulate that all together to get a picture of a user’s accounts and access and then take text file inputs from Human resources and the request catalogue tool and then manipulate all that to set up some sort of workflow/to do list for the support staff to work on.

Using Access I find it really hard to make a good looking interface and a sometimes struggle to nicely separate out all the SQL from VBA. After a lot work and re-work I usually end up with something mechanically suitable but it still looks rough and I would have had to do every bit myself from scratch.

I’ve heard of Mashups but can’t seem to find anything that would suit after a nosey round the internet.

So esteemed CUKers, please chip on your ideas for what I can use either alongside or instead of MS Access to do much slicker job of this.

P.S. I might be able to get an MS SQL DB set up and possibly use SSIS to handle the file inputs and email outputs but I need to get this prototyped in double quick time.
Thanks