[SirSean]

I work for a janitorial company and we have a lot of machines (buffers, sweepers, extractors, etc). I would like to make a site where we can keep up with our machines, their condition, location, serial number, etc. I would also like to be able to see the history of entries. This would not have to be fancy, because we use blackberrys, but I would make it secured. What do I need?

[chaosprime]

If you have any experience with Perl, or any other language that's effective for use in Web development, I'd say use that. If you don't, I'd say use PHP.

[curbview.com]

Originally Posted by SirSean

I work for a janitorial company and we have a lot of machines (buffers, sweepers, extractors, etc). I would like to make a site where we can keep up with our machines, their condition, location, serial number, etc. I would also like to be able to see the history of entries. This would not have to be fancy, because we use blackberrys, but I would make it secured. What do I need?

Are these machines rented? Who will maintain the status of each piece of equipment? How many people will have access to this information? Blackberrys? Are you wanting the Perl script to send you an email? I don't understand why you mentioned them? Please clarify.... You would want this to be warehoused in a database as well.

[SirSean]

Basically, we are a district of a large janitorial company. We have (in our district) probably about 100 machines, I'd guess. We don't rent out the equipment, but we do move these machines around quite often. Sometimes these machines get misplaced, need to be relocated, or need service. So, I would like some means of submitting updates on the machines, for instance, if we move the machine to another of our locations we would know where the machine is currently; or, we could record when a machine is found that needs repair and we would write what is wrong with the machine (like in a notes field). There are about 6 managers who would have access to this so that they could quickly locate a certain machine or type of machine and update it. It would not need to send emails. I mentioned the blackberrys just to say that it would be nothing fancy aesthetically. Thanks for your help! I appreciate it a bunch.

[dustin56]

You could go about creating a system using a server side language such as Perl, PHP, ASP, Ruby, or whatever you are comfortable and/or familiar with. For the actual storage of data you could use a database such as MySQL, PgSQL, MSSQL, Oracle, or other similar solutions depending on what resources are available to you.


Realistically, you would be suited just fine by a simple PHP & MySQL solution.

If you do not have access to an actual database, Perl and a DBM file would give you the basic functionality of a database that you require, while using a simple file on the web server rather than a true database. Similar things can be accomplished in other languages, but Perl makes this particular task very simple.