My Professional Outlook/Philosophy

1. Overview
 My Professional Outlook/Philosophy
– Client Approach
– Information Systems Design
 Clients
– Nature’s Earthenware
– Elements of Change
– Massage’n’Moore
– MIDWEST Alliance
 With Each Client, We’ll focus on:
– Their Needs
– My Solutions
– How Those Solutions Reflect My Philosophy
– Skills Demonstrated
My goal here is to demonstrate some of the skills I have to offer clients and offer some
insight as why I make to choices I do, so you might decide whether I have a place
within your professional scheme.
Please Note: All data shown is “mock-up” data, not client data

2. Professional Outlook/Philosophy

3. Client Approach
 Understanding a client’s job
 Every job grows out of a kernel of dissatisfaction
 Talk to the people who get their hands dirty
By talking to everyone, an IS developer bridges the
gap between management and staff, building
databases that lead the way while smoothing the
ride.

4. Information Systems Design
 Less is more
 People shouldn’t have to adapt to computers
 Avoid showing clients extraneous computer numbers
that hold no intrinsic meaning to them.
 Design and operation should mirror procedures
already in place
 Whenever possible, conserve system resources

5. Clients

6. Nature’s Earthenware
Nate crafts pottery of various sizes and colors.
Though hand-crafted, his pieces are
categorized by size and function. As a
signature, he imprints a floral impression on to
each of the pieces.
As far as I know, Nate has no showroom, that
is, no walk-in customers. He sells everything at
trade or craft shows or referral.

7. Nature’s Earthenware – Needs
Inventory Management System
Market Tracking
User-Level Security and Permissions
Nate needed a way to track his product from production to sales. He
needed to know what was in stock to prepare for trade shows. Then, he
needed to know what was selling and where so that he could tailor future
production.
Because both employees and staff would be utilizing his database, user-level
permissions were employed to make sure that team members only
saw what pertained to them.

9. Although Nate’s pottery is individual and unique, it is
also a product, a product that can be generalized with
three aspects: a piece’s color, category, and imprint
used.
Here you see input screens where all 3 dimensions are
defined and quantified.

10. Here’s Nate’s Inventory screen, with its two panels. The
right-hand panel shows his entire stock, whereas the left
panel focuses on the selected item, complete with photo.
The “Key” column, circled here in red, is not a computer
thing, but something Nate wanted, a sticker placed on the
item for cataloging during trade shows.
The Print button, circled in blue, appears on all of Nate’s
pages, allowing him to make hard copies of everything.

11. Nature’s Earthenware kept two Legers, one for the current
show, and a Sale History containing all sales.

12. All my database are filled with reports to help
clients drill-down their data and find meaningful
information to make sense of their business.
Nate runs this particular report after every
trade show to emphasize how his inventory is
changing.

13. Nate has a whole series of graphs to see what is selling
when and for how much. They’re interactive, allowing
Nate to change the parameters and answer new
questions easily.

14. With user-level permissions, users see only what’s
pertinent to them, allowing for greater
customization and security.
Users also have write-permissions, allowing Nate to
control who sees, edits, and deletes his data.

15. Nature’s Earthenware
Skills Demonstrated
 Custom toolbars
 Workgroup Wizard
 Knowledge of Recordsets
 OLE automation
 Pivot Charts

16. Elements of Change (EOC)
EOC is dedicated to reaching students “left behind” by
the white, middle class bias in America’s educational
system.
 Workshops – reaching students 6th – 12th
 Seminars – Inviting educators to see Packages
 Events – Community events sponsored by EOC to
promote general “smartiness”, good cheer, and well-being.

17. Elements of Change – Needs
Contact Management system with a smidgen of
Product Tracking mixed in.
 The folks at EOC meet a lot of people in a lot
of different capacities.
 They needed to know which contacts are
involved in which project.

19. EOC’s Contact Rolodex has three main divisions. The upper
set of tabs hold contact info, addresses, phone #s, that sort
of thing.
The lower set of tabs holds info on the contact’s role with
EOC, such as how many events seminars they’ve
participated in.
Finally, the buttons at the top cue various reports.

20. The information displayed changes depending the
contact’s category. The contact shown above, being an
artist, has an “Artist” tab, whereas the contributor below
has his “Contributor” tab.

21. Service “packages” can be tracked as readily as
goods.
My “Contact-on-the-Fly” feature allows you to add
new contacts wherever you happen to be without
interrupting workflow.

22. As with all my designs, the Print button is close at
hand,

26. Artist Example
Using “Calendar” Button
to Print an Activities
Report for Contacts in
the “Artist” category

27. I like to keep report buttons close at hand for an intuitive
approach. I also like an WYSIWYG—What you see is what
you get—approach to reporting. With the EOC database, I
‘slaved’ all their reports to the Access filter. This allows them
to filter out desired records and sent those to the chosen
report.
The next few slides show an example where the Artist
contacts are filtered and printed out.

28. 1. “Selection-Filter” the Artist category
Access has a range of filtering capabilities. The
quickest, Filter-by-Example, is used here. Simply find
a record, an example, that has what you’re looking
for, highlight the desired field—in this case the
“Category” field with Artist chosen—and click the
“lightning funnel”.

29. Here circled in blue, you see the 10 Artists have
been “filtered”.

30. 2. Click the “Calendar” Report Button

31. 3. Click “Filter” on the Report Dialog

32. The filtered subset, our 10 artists, have been sent to EOC’s Activities report.

33. Simpsons Example
Using “Envelope”
Button to Print Specific
Mailing Labels

34. 1. “Filter by Form” to Find Simpson
Say we want to mail something to the Simpsons. Rather than print the
entire mailing list, we could use Access’s Filter-by-Form to find records
that have the Simpson surname, as shown above.

36. 2. Click the “Envelope” Report

37. 3. Click “Filter” on Report Dialog
Clicking the Mail button brings up a dialog asking if
you wish to send the filtered results or the current
record to the report.
Let’s choose “Filter”…

39. …and there’s our result.
Although your reports will be different, I think the ability to focus reports
on filtered records gives you the freedom to highlight aspects of your
business and exclude the extraneous.
Of course, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to do it. It’s your database.

40. Elements of Change
Skills Demonstrated
 VBA Programming
 UNION Queries
 Reports

41. Massage’n’Moore – Needs
Ross is a masseuse who:
 Would like a paperless office
 Would like to track client progress
 Is concerned about security
– Beyond password and encryption
– Wanted both database on data on separate
portable media!

42. Beyond your basic contact info, Ross wanted his SOAP sessions in the
database. SOAP is the therapy paperwork documenting the muscle
groups worked on and changes in condition.

44. I integrated Access with Microsoft Paint. Ross
is able to draw on his muscle diagrams by
clicking on them.

45. Steps Taken to Secure Database
1. Split Database into Front and Back End
2. Using Workgroup Wiz, Secure both Ends to Same
This setup is more elaborate than I would recommend. It’s really not a
good idea to carry your database around with you on portable media—
CDs, Workgroup
Zip drives—aside from archival copies.
Nevertheless, Ross insisted.
3. Burn Entrance PIF, Workgroup and Front-End to
CD
4. Delete PIF, Workgroup and Front-End from Hard
Drive
Result: Database Only Accessible to those with CD

46. Massage’n’Moore
Skills Demonstrated:
 OLE Integration
 Workgroup Security

47. MIDWEST Alliance
The Midwest Alliance offers high quality, supportive programs
designed to guide students with disabilities in Illinois, Iowa and
Wisconsin more efficiently and effectively toward careers in
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
Direct Student Impact through mentorship, internship and enrichment
programs that support, guide and inspire students with disabilities in their
exploration of STEM.
Indirect Student Impact through presentations and workshops
System Impact through creation and dissemination of successful
practices in disability service provision and assistive technology
Source: www.stemmidwest.org

48. MIDWEST Alliance – Needs
Currently, the MIDWEST database only caters to the first stated goal—
Internships and Mentorships—and not presentations or policy
advocacy.
 A Contact System tracking both the Internship and Mentorship
Programs with a shared Rolodex.
 Network the database over university server.
 Maintain a “satellite” database with the Alliance of Illinois
Participant “matching” is notably absent from the database. MS Access
could have highlighted probable Internship/Mentorship candidates and
tracked the ongoing search, but the client felt that was heavy-handed
and preferred doing it by hand.

49. MIDWEST Switchboard

50. Although students can be both Interns and “Mentees”, because
MIDWEST staff typically focus on a single program, it was necessary for
each program to have their own screens, accessing a central rolodex, so
when students’ info changed, all the programs with which they’re
involved are updated.

52. Answers at a glance
Every contact page has a set of tabs at the bottom showing what the
contact has been involved with, like the tabs shown here at the bottom
of the “Mentee” page.
The tab entries are also navigational, clicking on them will bring up the
record involved in further detail.

53. Multiple Categories, Multiple Viewpoints
In the MIDWEST database, users can assign contacts to multiple
categories, allowing them to view their contacts from many
different angles. Users can rename categories or even create new
ones.

54. Buttons, Buttons, Buttons
As usual with my designs, the MIDWEST database has lots of report buttons,
putting valuable, printable information close at hand!

55. Network and Beyond
Although not responsible for the network itself, I placed and
maintain the database on MIDWEST’s server. I also created a
satellite database for the Alliance of Illinois that synchronizes
routinely with MIDWEST.

56. Thanks for Your Time
Mike Jones
mikej@dataflowsolutions.us
www.dataflowsolutions.us
I look forward to discussing your needs and ideas. You don’t need
any formal plans to brainstorm, just desires. The first hour’s
consultation is free, so you’ve got nothing to lose.
I know together we can improve your workload and streamline all
the loose ends into an “idea machine”, framing your business in a
clear picture which will reveal new areas of growth.