Changing database info via an online web form 1

[kieron3655]

Hi,
We market a group of hotels via a web site and want a way to automate our commission from each booking we sent to each hotel.

In essence, we want:
1. The guest to fill in a reservation form which sends the request to a particular hotel AND fills in the appropriate fields in an Access(?) database on our server.

2. With the details on our database of who sent reservations requests to which hotels, we would then email each hotel a monthly commission payment request. (Preferably by sorting the database info into “hotels” and “dates”, then hitting “email”.)

3. Because some guests cancel or change the length of their stay, we’d prefer if each hotel could change the details on our database via a web form. By changing the details in this form it would overwrite the database info and automatically adjust the commission.(Perhaps at a later stage the hotels could pay their commissions online, but that’s not what we need now)

Is this idea too complex for FrontPage and Access? Rather than paying a FrontPage/Access specialist to hobble this together (if it's possible), is there likely to be something similar already out there? So far, I’ve only found large reservation systems for $$$$$ale.
Thanks
Kieron

 

[jasek78]

To save the information into an MS Access database, you'll need to use ASP/VBScript to do it. Its not that difficult, but you need an IIS webserver to host it.

This is what I would do.

(#1)Set up the webpage how you want it, with the order entry page, and tie that to an Access database using ASP and VBScript.

(#2)You can find some cheap/free ASP email components on the web and use that to send the email to the hotels. Your commission field could be set up to auto-calculate using a macro or other function of the database (depending on how you calculate it). You could just base the email off of a query of the original table to retrieve the relevant records.

(#3)For the hotels, you would create a database "admin" page where the hotels could review the records, (most likely with a search function to find the record they need to change) and edit it appropriately.

If you need help, feel free to reply to this post

jason

 

[kieron3655]

Thanks Jason,
You've answered my fundamental question which was it *can* be done (with a little help from ASP/VBScript).

I was particularly unsure about #2) i.e. a way of arranging the records by hotel name (easy) but being able to simply select "email" (or "print&quot for those records to be automatically emailed out to each of the appropriate hotels. From your response, this seems quite possible?

I was also unsure of #3) whether the hoteliers could login and change details on what seems to be quite a basic(?) data base. I thought that might call for some major ($$$) programming?

Regards
Kieron

 

[jasek78]

#3 would be fairly easy. You would have to set up some sort of 'login' page (assuming you want each hotel to only see their relevant records?)

#2 may call for more major programming, but I do believe it to be quite possible.

jason