I just discovered I had Microsoft Infopath a few days ago and realized it may
work perfect for this project I am putting together. The questions I am
asking I did search for but didn't find anything.  Besides, this is something
I need done quickly and if any actually knows the answers while I KEEP
searching, that would be great.

Thanks so much ahead of time! If I get the right answers like I hope, I'll
be sure to come back when I get started on the project ;-)

MY SCENARIO:
I'm trying to design a form that connects to a DATABASE of information.  
This information through use of queries and such will need to be gathered
through a form (Infopath I assume) and queried out some more.  I'll then need
to be able to manually edit any of the information and then when I'm all
done, save a  "snapshot" of what I just did and print it.  NOTE: When I say
edit, I do NOT mean edit the main information that was derived from MS
Access, I simply mean that particular form.  

You see, we're trying to basically create a "Machine layout plan" that will
have a customer information, the item they want, the machine number and then
it will have a list of the different "parts" that we must create.  These
parts have other parts in them (a belt, certain type of bolts, etc).  This is
all fine and good and normally for this we would not need to make changes,
however we do have special orders come in all the time that customers want to
tweak the stuff from what our "standard" is.  

SO, basically we need to be able to grab the information from a database by
using a form to determine what from the database we need, then take a
"snapshot" of that information, and then allow additions, deletions, and
updates to the current lists of information and finally, have the capability
of saving that item in a folder (preferably, though if there are better
ideas, that WORKS too), and then printing it off and then having the
oppurtunity to go back in, print other copies off or make more changes and
save again.

BASIC QUESTIONS:
I am pretty sure Infopath is the cheapest and most likely candidate for the
job so long as the use of Access is involved, my problem are these.

1.) Will infopath be able to take a snapshot of the database information
(the queries and stuff I used to grab this unique set of information) and
save a different copy IN infopath, allow changes to be made locally to that
file? (Or maybe just some other way, I dont' know.. but our orders must each
be unique due to the high volume of special changes we get).

2.) Can infopath have a table in it full of information (such as parts) that
will be able to easily add new parts, delete old parts or change current
parts information?

3.) On top of question 2, I was thinking on creating two tables... one
called "systems", another called "systemItems" and one more called
"systemBOM"  the one called "systems" would be have the titles of the
different systems we have to build for that particular machine, then drop
down another list that would be the different systemItems (like a serial
number) that make up the different systems, allowing me to choose ONE
systemItem.  Finally, we would have "systemBOM" which would be our materials
list.  The materials list would be connected to the systemItem and after we
had chosen the systemItem number for each system, the materials list would be
displayed underneath each system. So my question is, can this be made
possible by use of infopath and access?  Also, (more of an Access question),
would it be possible to connect more than one systemItem to a system
material? (I'm assuming it would be called a many - many relationship, but we
still need to recognize that the systemItem takes precedence).

4.) Based on what you heard, do you even agree that InfoPath & Access are
the right to programs to use for this or do you have something else in mind
that I haven't thought of?


I deeply appreciate any help I get!!!
--Mike
*bump*I don't think you need any more than Access for this.  But you do need someone who really understands database design to do this for you.  And if you want to deploy this solution in a multiuser environment, a SQL database backend would be a very good idea.  (You can still use Access as a frontend - it's handy for rapid development.)

By the way; no need to bump posts after just an hour.  Someone will get there eventually.  But the main problem-solving contributors to this forum are spread across many different time zones.THanks for the suggestions, however if you noticed I BUMPED it precisely 25 hours later.

I'll look into it some more.Whoops!  Sorry!

Having been made redundant last week, feel free to give me a shout if you need some DB design and coding support!!!  I was told quite a bit over here: http://www.infopathdev.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4342 but I've been thinking that when they say "Live Meeting" they expect $$ and a chance to come over.  $$ isn't a bad idea, so long as it is not much, but to come over?  I Have no idea who these people are and can not trust our assetts and even the slighest chance at getting a hack through to our systems.  I need someone who can walk me through this via a voice conference or through a chat room or even the phone if wished.  I know it's asking a lot to do this for a company but in the process I will be learning things, which is the main reason why I want to do this... not only for future repairs but future jobs and such.  I'm only 17 running an entire network and I don't believe my school or any colleges around teach "InfoPath" ;-)

Anyways, after reading that other message you're willing to put in your 2 CENTS worth, I would deeply appreciate it.

Thank you,
--MikeInfoPath is a good-looking bit of kit, and probably well worth learning.  I have not experimented with using it in a distributed fashion though.  I still think that an MS Access front end with a SQL back end is likely to be your best solution.

Unfortunately, when I said "feel free to give me a shout if you need some DB design and coding support" I didn't mean that I could enter into a large project for free, alas.  I still gotta eat.