Adding ACT! Data to Internal Intranet

[kriscorrie]

Hello Guys,

We are in the process of building a company intranet for all users, and one of the things id like to implement on it is a dashboard that mines data from our act database. Firstly is this acheivable? secondly is it difficult and are there any low level instructions on how to achieve this?

I know my way around .Net a bit but am in no way a genius im just in the process of learning.

Seems from what ive read around here and from the SDK that its achievable, id like just a pointer in the right direction.

Kind Regards

Kristofer

[alduet]

One option for you would be to use the OLEDB Provider to read data out of ACT! and add to your intranet dashboard.  Also, check out the download board right next to this forum for some sample code on creating a webservice exposing ACT! data (though this is a bit more advanced than OLEDB Provider access).

[kriscorrie]

Hello Allen, thanks for taking time out to answer my question.

If you dont mind id like to press for a couple of other answers.

1) Most of the example code in the download section seems to be for plugins for the existing act interface, im having trouble locating one thats relevant to what im trying to do, if you would be willing to take the time to point one which you think is appropriate to me, then id be deeply thankful.

2) We are using ACT 2009 standard edition, and are reluctant to upgrade to premium if it can be avoided. With this in mind we cant get access to the systemadmin password or the ACTReader account, so any connection using OLEDB will, i understand, require a password every time you attempt a connection to the database? Can you confirm?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide some assistance.

Kind regards

Kristofer

[alduet]

Here's a link to the example code that exposes ACT! data as a webservice (and creates a Windows widget as a consumer):

http://community.act.com/sage/board/message?board.id=ADN_Downloads&thread.id=12

As mentioned previously this is the more complex way of exposing ACT! data but would probably meet your needs.

On question 2 the OLEDB Provider uses the ACT! application username /pwd for data access, you do not require SA or other credentials to use this feature.  If you are part of the ACT! 2010 beta you can check out sample code on the new provider here:

http://community.act.com/sage/board/message?board.id=bets_2010_sdk&thread.id=184

The code is written as an ACT! custom control but most of the code can be easily repurposed.