Member Log In section, how to

[ArnoldoT]

Hey there..

A friend of mine is interested on a website.. this is the short story...

He has an inspection service company, and he wants to be able to upload the inspection's report and have his customers access their information by logging into his website...

what's the easiest way for him to do it, he has no html experience at all (not to mention CSS, DB, MySQL) and he is not very interested on learning dreamweaver... is there any software out there just to upload the report and generate an user id/pswd?

or should i just offer him to do it for him?
i mean, he'd send me the report, i will then upload it on the server and pswd protect it...?

i have never done that before... can you guys help me on this? any tips? sites i should take a look at?

Thanks!

[vwebworld]

Hi,

There are a few issues with what your friend
wants to do.
My understanding from what you describe is:
He generates reports (multi-page?) and wants
to let his customers view their specific reports.

First, getting the report(s) uploaded to his
website server is not a problem... but you may want
to have the reports on PDF format rather than word.
Because the word (.doc) file/report can be changed
while a PDF formated report is view only.

Second, one approach is to create a folder for
each report/customer, such a folder on his site's
server could be password protected... so the
customer could only see the report meant for them.

Third, is this worth it? If the reports are only
a one-time event, why not just email the report
to the customer? Or is access to these reports
needed for a long time or for editing???

~Roland

[ArnoldoT]

Hello Roland, thanks for your answer...

Well, as far as i know the reports are, in average, up to 3 pages... and if they are uploaded, thats it, no changes, no updates.. (dont ask me why!)

email was my first thought also, i think is way easier, less expensive and time consuming...

i guess if he just wants to use the "technology" the best way is to create a autoresponder on his email acount... since regular emailing does not seem to be what hes looking for.

By the way, which PDF creator/convertor would you recomend other than Adobe?

I heard Macromedia's PDF Writer is good...

Thanks for your reply, that was FAST!

[vwebworld]

I suggest using pdf995 to create pdf format files.
http://www.pdf995.com/ It's FREE! and it works!

~Roland

[B0B]

Hi Arnoldo

It depends on how many reports are stored on line. If you just have a few a separate folder with PW protection sounds good. If you have thousands you should have use a database. It will be much faster and easier to synchronize an online database with a local database or use the online database as input. I would use HTML rather than pdf. It’s another step.

If there is sensitive information in the report you might rethink email unless it’s secure. It’s a liability problem.

pdf995 isn’t exactly free. It’s $9.95. It works great for most conversions. It has some problems when complex documents are converted.

[vwebworld]

pdf995 isn’t exactly free.

Hmmm, I've never paid anything for pdf995

~Roland

[paulhiles]

Just to clarify......

this extract from the pdf995 website

The free versions of pdf995 products will display a sponsor page in your web browser each time you run the software. If you would prefer not to see sponsor pages, you may upgrade by obtaining a key at any time for $9.95.

[ArnoldoT]

BOB
PaulHiles

Thanks for your replies...

Bob, the thing is that he did not specified the type of document he needs to upload, nor the size or anything specific!
Yeah, i did ask... still waiting for the answer tho!

I just dont think any "report" from a house inspection service can be that big that you need to upload it to the server and have your clients to view/download it...

I would think that an Email(or even a freaking fax) would do the job, it just seems to me that creating an "online access" for this is not even worthed...

------
anyways, i keep you posted on the final desision for this matter...

-----------

about the PDF995

I rather not to use the free version... 9.95 is a very good price if it works, i just hate banners and things like that..! hehe


thanks again guys!

[ArnoldoT]

Ok, talked to my friend...

The reports are 35pages each! hahaha.... kind big, arent they?

So, this is what we have...

Max 3 reports per day, 6 days a week, thats around 50 reports per month, which is a whole lot of password protected folders...

can you guys think of another option? cuz i cant!

Thanks