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Any DBAs in the house? (ODBC question)
Dr. Frenchenstein
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So i am trying to get a "live feed" of a few tables in our GL system (account master, vendor master, customer master). the SysAdmins will not allow me to directly connect an Access DB (over ODBC) to the tables to do this. so instead, they've created a query that runs every 10 minutes to update a CSV file out on a shared drive. unfortunately, this means i can't connect excel files to it without opening the file itself, which is a pain. however, i have been able to link to it via Access, so i may try to work around that. in addition, our vendor file has commas in the description (employees are displayed as "Smith, John") of certain vendors, which blows the columns up, and renders that feed pretty much useless. They have told me they are unable to get the data to produce an excel file, only csv. is there a good argument to convince system administrators to allow ODBC connections to SQL DBs? i only want read access, so there should be no data integrity concerns. I'm just trying to build some tools that will automate/improve some of our current manual processes.
I'm starting to wonder if this job has me too locked down for my liking.
I'm starting to wonder if this job has me too locked down for my liking.
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They could just set up a read only username. CSV can't really be used with comma in text fields, I mean it can, but it's a nightmare. Tab delimited is what you should use if you have that kind of data.
I can see where they're coming from, export to an excel is often times not a thing that can be done.
ODBC shouldn't be a concern, especially if you want read only access. If your DBAs won't give you that, then you should petition for new DBAs.
Edit: If this is SQL Server, they'd need to do user mapping to the DB in question, and give you db_datareader IIRC.
MySQL lets you choose which kind of things you want to give them access to (select on tables and views, etc).
They'll probably take offense to my use of 'readonly', probably, as their first line of defense.
On the surface, it sounds like they're just being lazy.
Just don't let your frustration get to you. There's a way to be naggy without being an asshole, and that's usually the best way to push through these kinds of road blocks. Keep asking if it's possible, who you need to talk to, what kind of information they need, etc. etc. etc. in the nicest way possible. At some point, you'll be handed down the line until you get to someone who can actually definitively give you an answer of yes or no. This way, if they say no, at least you know you're hearing it from the right person and not just some jackass who just doesn't want to spend more than 5 minutes thinking about it.
For sure.
In my experience they'd say, "Sorry it's against policy to do such a thing, best I can do is _____"
The fact that they're giving him an export means it's probably kosher, they're just lazy and don't want to do anything.
Where "lazy" may actually be overworked. As a developer, I find myself saying no, or maybe in 3 months even for easy things, just because I have higher priority work that stretches out that far.
If that's the case, your answer should be "not right now". Answering "No" gives your users/stakeholders/business the wrong impression.