Contracts Management Database

A multi-user database for keeping track of, and reporting on, all aspects of contracts covering products and services.

Last updated on 2020-05-26 by David Wallis

This database was created for a UK company manufacturing, and suppying world-wide, interior decoration products and services.

The client’s main system did not provide for comprehensive information on contracts, both on-going and completed. The multi-user database provided for this information until the main system could be updated.

In 1998, this dashboard passed muster, but in re-mastering it for today’s use, I’d be careful to follow the suggestions in Designing and Creating Forms in Microsoft Access about choice of typefaces and colours .

In its development, the database was modified as end users grew to appreciated how they could benefit from having full contract information at their fingertips.

In its early stages, the database accommodated the users’ requirements, which inevitably were a mix of need-to-have and nice-to-have. Nice-to-haves were discarded as part of on-going improvements. Need-to-have reporting filled out the Print Outs list.

In providing a complete overview of contracts missing from the client’s main system, the database served as a useful basis on which the client established a specification for upgrading the system.

Development Platform

Microsoft Access and VBA, on a local area network providing availability of the datbase to multiple concurrent users.