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I have what I want to do in an excel sheet with over 700,000 cells, but would like to turn it into a web based app.

The First step to overcome has to do with figuring out the "shipping zone". So basically, I have a page within the excel workbook that has 550,000 entries.... it is comparing origin and destination zip codes. It searches for a range, on both ends, and then returns the "zone" which has a different number for each of the 5 shipping speeds.

So for example,

  • Origin: 28107

  • Dest: 91311

  • Ground Zone: 8

  • 3 Day Zone: 308
  • 2 Day zone: 208
  • Next Day Saver: 138
  • Next Day Air: 108

The next step will then be to reference a rate table where the "ship speed", the zone for that ship speed, and the weight, will be referenced.... and will then return a number.

I do not know what type of Database would be best to do this.... Where do I even start?

RedX
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Mark Fisher
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  • Please note, this is NOT a file that will log into UPS's API. This is a straight tool for internal use.... – Mark Fisher Sep 15 '15 at 15:48
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    This sort of question ie. 'In your opinion what is the best solution to my problem' is not really well suited to SO. The reason for this is that such questions are less likely to reach any conclusion or solution! Stack Overflow is meant for providing solutions to real-time problems but not the never ending discussions. – DotNetHitMan Sep 15 '15 at 15:55

3 Answers3

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I'd recommend you to start with MS Access to get comfortable wit Databases if your company is able to provide it to you.

You might need to transition to another DB when you finally move to the intranet part of your project but it will make the transition easier if you are comfortable with DBs first.

One might argue that the syntax of the SQL used by Access is full of caveats but i think it's good enough for beginners.

Another point for access is it's interface which might make introductions easier.

The rest on how to setup your own server to serve contens on the int{ra,er}net is too broad to answer here. There are tons of articles on the internet on that.

RedX
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If I set it up in Access, is there a way to easily transfer it to the web, where I could have employees access it in the field? I have never created a web DB from scratch... I have customized existing ones.... and just really do not know where to start on this.

I have spent months perfecting the excel workbook, and really do not want to do this over and over again.... is there a way to start with just the web based DB? and if so, where do i start?

Mark Fisher
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  • Ultimately you could just plug the access DB in your Web frontend. Although beware that it is not common and you might find little support for it on the internet. Performance wise it will not support 100eds of parallel accesses. If that is not a problem for you you can start with that. If you host your Website on Linux then i would argue against starting with Access as the basis. – RedX Sep 17 '15 at 07:31
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Agree with redX, and porting from Access to SQL is not difficult, though, if you are starting from scratch with databases, and you will be needing to port this over to a RDBMS ultimately, you could do worse than start with the SQL express version in conjunction with SSMS from the get-go. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server-editions/sql-server-express.aspx

Tony
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