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PHP Database

by Finandom
12 replies
Hi there,

My uncle is asking me to create a software for his business. He has several sales persons who travel around the country. He would like to have a software for them so that they can key in the customer orders from their laptop. He wishes to see the sales concurrently and let his employees in HQ response to the sales orders as fast as possible.

I only know a bit of PHP code. So I decided to create a normal HTML form for him. His sales person will key all the relevant data into the form and submit it. The data will be stored inside the mysql database so that he can retrieves the data whenever he wants to.

The problem is the sales person might go to certain area where it is hard for them to get into the Internet. What is the solution I can use so that the sales person can key in the data without the Internet and the computer will upload the data to the mysql once he can access the Internet?
#database #php
  • Profile picture of the author Valdor Kiebach
    Use a smartphone for inputing the sales data using the phones data connection to the internet
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    • Profile picture of the author kilgore
      Without knowing anything more detailed about your requirements (for instance, does the software need to be web based or can it be run from their laptops, smartphones, etc. and if so which? What does inputting an order mean?), it's really hard to point you in the right direction.

      That said, before I built anything custom, I'd look to see what already exists. It sounds like a CRM product like Salesforce (full-featured but expensive) or SugarCRM (less features but has a free, open-source version) might meet your needs. If not those, I'm sure there's something else out there -- I'm sure your uncle isn't the only one in the world who wants to do what you describe.

      I'm also not sure how you plan on saving data to MySQL in a pure HTML form. You're gonna need PHP (or Python or Java or Perl or C# or ...) at some point...
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      • Profile picture of the author Finandom
        Originally Posted by kilgore View Post

        Without knowing anything more detailed about your requirements (for instance, does the software need to be web based or can it be run from their laptops, smartphones, etc. and if so which? What does inputting an order mean?), it's really hard to point you in the right direction.

        That said, before I built anything custom, I'd look to see what already exists. It sounds like a CRM product like Salesforce (full-featured but expensive) or SugarCRM (less features but has a free, open-source version) might meet your needs. If not those, I'm sure there's something else out there -- I'm sure your uncle isn't the only one in the world who wants to do what you describe.

        I'm also not sure how you plan on saving data to MySQL in a pure HTML form. You're gonna need PHP (or Python or Java or Perl or C# or ...) at some point...
        It does not need to be web based. My uncle only wants to see the information for the sales order from the HQ. So the data must be updated live and that is why I decided to use web based software.
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  • Profile picture of the author drem
    I think if the person has lost Internet connectivity, you may want to store pending data locally and cross check it with the MySQL database when the Internet is live again.

    You can just do this with customer order numbers and cross check using indexes.

    I mean, ideally, the user will always have access to the Internet, or they can simply save the information to a file, such as a CSV where it can all be uploaded later. The issue comes with what happens if the user loses their laptop or phone? There will be a much higher chance of data loss with the way that you want to do this.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nett
    Old school, pen and paper

    And then upload the data when internet is available.
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    • Profile picture of the author Finandom
      Originally Posted by Nett View Post

      Old school, pen and paper

      And then upload the data when internet is available.
      This is a good idea. however, they have been using pen and paper for more than 10 years. Lately they found that there are a lot of careless mistakes involved and caused a lot of problems. This is why my uncle wants to create a software to overcome this.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nett
    Get a phone with 3G or 4G internet then.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
    I agree with "old school", although using Notepad rather than pen and paper. You can create a simple template, and ask the team to fill in the template when they can't reach the Internet. Then upload that text file when they can, and your website parses it.

    Sure, you could write something sexier, such as software that runs on their laptop, or a local Web server running on the laptop, but sometimes, simple is best. Nothing stops you from refining the process later.
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  • Profile picture of the author wondercoder
    If he is not going to use internet you can make android application and use sqllite database to store the data.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikea12
    I'm surprised no one mentioned using local storage. I write mostly in javascript using backbone.js, some apps I build need a way to save data while offline so I use local storage, there are some great open source plugins on github that can help you implement a local storage strategy.

    You can build a restful api (sounds scary, but is the best way to do this) with a PHP framework like laravel, you would need some javascript knowledge to save that data into local storage. Then build your routers and controllers in PHP to pass data back and forth.

    This is good for what you need since backbone localstorage can make the POST requests as soon as the client connects to the web.
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    • Profile picture of the author kingjpm
      Originally Posted by mikea12 View Post

      I'm surprised no one mentioned using local storage. I write mostly in javascript using backbone.js, some apps I build need a way to save data while offline so I use local storage, there are some great open source plugins on github that can help you implement a local storage strategy.

      You can build a restful api (sounds scary, but is the best way to do this) with a PHP framework like laravel, you would need some javascript knowledge to save that data into local storage. Then build your routers and controllers in PHP to pass data back and forth.

      This is good for what you need since backbone localstorage can make the POST requests as soon as the client connects to the web.
      The only problem I had with local storage was the limits allowed to save locally
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  • Profile picture of the author TheCrazyCoder
    Actually problem is common, many have such. 3/4G doesn't everywhere even in big cities.
    Accessing internet when it isn't there - can not be solved. Fully "Web based" isn't solution here. Some part must be "local".

    So, "sync" - is solution for you. Do simple desktop app which store data on local storage. Sync data with your mysql when internet is available.
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