Customer information tracking system?

[RandomFool]

A friend of mine is looking to create a system to track a couple of statistics between several different locations. The idea is to have a database of different customers and then keep track of what services they're using at each location. It's all very very high level right now so that's about all the detail I have. It's also a non-profit org so they don't have to resources to run/admin a server of their own.

I don't know much about this stuff myself. I'm assuming some sort of web based solution would be easiest/cheaper. Are there companies that can set something like this up? How much does this stuff cost?

 

[Brett]

it really depends what they need. Honestly, it looks like in terms of hosting (unless you arent well representing the scale of this non-profit org) that a simple server like godaddys $6.99 plan would do. All you really need is a database and probably an easy CGI script or ASP or PHP if a bit more interactivity is required.

In terms of solutions, well... without more details its almost impossible to tell. You might be able to find someone to do it cheap at rentacoder.com, but I know I charge for time spent doing all phases of the project (requirements/specifications, design, impl, test, deploy, etc). Since they dont have any real details of what they want... I would bet the upfront requirements stuff would take a lot of time and be costly.

But thats just my take on it... more info and I could give you a better guess

 

[RandomFool]

Yeah it's all a bit sketchy at this point. All I could gather about it was that it would basically need to say Person X was here and did YYY then was here and did ZZZ.

All they're doing now is writing a proposal to try and get funding for the system so not a lot of thought has gone into it other than "it'd be nice if we could do this". She was basically looking for a ballpark figure to create the system. My first thought was just a quick and dirty web site would probably be more than enough. I'm a decent enough programmer to throw a quick site together that should do the job but I'm not sure about the requirements and how everything would need to be handled. I figured it'd be worth seeing about other solutions that might be more professional/robust/good.

 

[Hyperblaze]

www.guru.com

depending on how complex you want the system to be, it might end of costing quite a bit

 

[EagleKeeper]

A simple database (MySQL) with a Web page interface with a couple of selection dropdown boxes.

You can setup an Apache server that will come packaged with MySQL (free).

There are a couple of info to PHP/MySQL books that will assist in setting up the proper page for what you want to do.


Otherwise a simple front end application that uses a connection to a simple backend server to handle the I/O with the database.

 

[KB]

There may be a ton of COTS (Commercial off-the-shelf software) out there that already does this. First gather requirements, then search the internet for key terms: like work scheduling, time tracking, job order processing and see if the software you find meets his requirements. If none do, then it is time to start looking at writing your own.

 

[Crusty]

What you described in the OP is quite simple and could whipped together in an afternoon by any experienced programmer. The basic idea is to have a centralized data store, that can be remotely accessed/administrated. A simple web hosting plan and a php/mysql script and you are all set. Now, if it actually turns out to be a lot more complex, and the system needs to be doing lots of concurrent transactions then you would want to start looking at custom server/software solution.