I agree with Ed Price - use a spreadsheet with well-documented formatting unless you have a really good reason not to - from a person that has wasted 2 days automating a 15 min process that is done twice per year.
OpenOffice and LibreOffice are available for Mac, Win, and Linux. The 'Calc' and 'Base' apps are spreadsheet and database, respectively. Neither are fully compatible with the MS Office products, but various version of Office have some compatibility problems. For those non-CS weenies that want to design a robust database structure, suggest the excellent freebie Stanford online SQL/database theory course at http://www.db-class.org. Brian -----Original Message----- From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org]On Behalf Of Ed Price Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 2:01 PM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: RE: [PSES] database Jim: And for the >90% of us who are not using those insanely incredible machines, but who also remember how to code, I can’t see why Excel wouldn’t handle all the sorting and flagging you would ever need. As for storing the documents, just establish a protocol for naming them, enter them as a field in your Excel sheet, and make them clickable links. You do your sorting and flagging and checking, and just click on any entry you want to go to. No servers, no clouds, and you already own a copy (Mac people must have something equivalent, I hope). BTW, 40th anniversary of the introduction of Pong! I’m out of quarters! Ed Price El Cajon, CA USA From: Derek Walton [mailto:lfresea...@aol.com] Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 8:47 AM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] database Hi Jim, I back what Ken says. But, for those of us that use real computers, MAC's, you may want to consider filemaker. http://www.filemaker.com/ Sincerely, Derek. -----Original Message----- From: Ken Wyatt <k...@emc-seminars.com> To: Goedderz, Jim <jgoedd...@tycoint.com> Cc: EMC-PSTC <EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG> Sent: Fri, Jun 29, 2012 10:42 am Subject: Re: [PSES] database We created a homebrew regs database for Agilent products and because it was completely custom, required months of effort just to get the first working version - and then years of maintenance to get it working optimally. I'd stick with something off the shelf, as you've specified, and perhaps cloud-based. Here's a list of some popular packages: http://database.software.informer.com/software/. I've not found anything specifically designed for product regulations. Ken _______________________ Kenneth Wyatt Wyatt Technical Services LLC Woodland Park, CO Email Me! | Web Site | Blog The EMC Blog (T&M World) Subscribe to Newsletter Connect with me on LinkedIn On Jun 29, 2012, at 9:15 AM, Goedderz, Jim wrote: Group, We’ve been discussing getting a database that would include all our products, and their status as pertains to safety, emc, etc. The object is to be able to sort and see which products have missing certifications, all certifications, etc. and can also store the documents. Can anyone suggest a program that is off the shelf for this use? Thank you. James Goedderz Sr. Principal Engineer-Product Safety Sensormatic Electronics, LLC 561.912.6378 - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald <dhe...@gmail.com> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>