I had an application that I was working where the client insisted on using an Access database for the application. The application was running on a two node server farm so the Access database had to be located on a seperated machine and accessed over the network. When upgrading the server farm from 2000 to 2003 the client ran into an issue accessing the database.

After checking to make sure it wasn’t an error with the connection to the location where the database was held I attempted to put the database underneath the site and connect to it there. Well that connection worked fine and the data could be accessed.

Long story short after some research and some long hours on this I found that the issue was a combination of things. First under IIS 6 all applications are run under application pools. The application pools do not pass the identity along that they run under. This creates a problem when trying to access a remote drive. To solve this issue you can enable impersonation of the account that you had IIS to run as the anonymous user. To do this you need to open the web.config file of your application. Under the and then insert a line that is similar to this:

< IDENTITY impersonate="”true”/" >

This line should be used if you wish to impersonate the user as the account that the user is logged in as on their desktop.

or

< IDENTITY impersonate="”true”" userName="”< your" user name >” password=”< USER account password > ”/>

This line should be used if you want to specify one specific account to impersonate.

After I turned on the impersonation in my project another issue appeared. I got the dreded /< YOUR name application > Application Error. This issue was addressed in Microsoft KB82719 Article.

When a .NET application executes it uses the TEMP folder of the ASPNET user, or whatever user you have specified to run your .NET applications, to run and store temporary files. When you run an Access database/application temporary files are opened but since you are impersonating a user that user does not have access to open these files under the ASPNET temp directory. The solution for this is simple, go into the file structure and grant the account access to the temp folder in C:Document settingsServerNameASPNETlocal settings folder. Only give the account access to the Temp folder so that a security risk is not created.

Jason Fortner is co-founder of Total Productivity Solutions, http://www.totalproductivitysolutions.com, a company that specilizes in SharePoint, Webpart and .NET development. More tips on web development visit Total Productivity Solutions.

Are you lost in the mess of documents that get passed around your company, never knowing what the latest version is and which one you should work on without worrying if someone else has already made the same editions that you are making? Perhaps you have heard of collaboration software solutions such as Documentum to help your company manage its documents that are passed around. Documentum is a very good solution to this problem but is it the only one? In this article you will be presented with some basic information about the differences in collaboration software from Documentum and NextPage.

What is collaboration software?

Collaboration software allows business professionals to work directly with other business professionals by allowing them to work together to create business documents, presentations, and budgets. Most collaboration software is centralized. This allows business professionals to work on the same documents at the same time from different locations. Some centralized collaboration software solutions include Groove Network, Microsoft SharePoint, Documentum, and Filenet.

Why use Documentum?

There are a few advantages to using centralized collaboration software such as Documentum. The main advantage being that they work very well for team collaboration. Documentum’s software keeps all files, projects, and data in one centralized location that everyone who is working on the project can access. This allows them to review and update the same document that everyone else has used, which essentially keeps everyone working on the same page.

Are there any drawbacks to Documentum?

While the collaboration software solution provided by Documentum is very useful and beneficial, there are a few drawbacks to using it. The main disadvantage being that Documentum’s software requires the use of an IT infrastructure. Another potential drawback is that it requires an extensive amount of installation time. This can be a major inconvenience to those business professionals who are always busy and on the go.

Other collaboration software options out there also require everyone you work with to have the same software in order to share information. All of these drawbacks to centralized collaboration software can be very expensive and inconvenient.

What else will work for my company?

NextPage provides an alternative solution to the centralized collaboration software. NextPage 1.5 Collaboration Software tracks documents with Digital Thread technology. Say, for instance, that you are working on your company’s budget. You want to make sure that your facts and figures are correct so you send your spreadsheet to several of your co-workers for review. They look over the spreadsheet and make the necessary changes. They then return their spreadsheet version to you, and with NextPage 1.5, you simply merge the document versions together into one. NextPage 1.5 lets you see all of this visually via a graphical version history. With the graphical version history, you would always know where the various versions of your spreadsheet are stored, what changes have been made, who has reviewed your spreadsheet, when the revisions were made, and how the revisions fit together. NextPage makes it easy to see where the document has been and what revisions have been made, eliminating the confusion of who did what and when it was done.

What advantages does NextPage have?

The major advantages to using NextPage’s collaboration software include

the following:

• Do NOT need a centralized server

• Do NOT need an IT infrastructure

• Installation can be done in a matter of minutes

• Will work with associates who are NOT NextPage subscribers

• Solves document management problems where they originate

If your company is getting lost in the mess of documents then you can benefit greatly by implementing a collaboration software solution. Solutions from Documentum or NextPage will enhance your overall organization and productivity. In this article I have got the ball rolling for you. All you need to do now is to see what solution will best fit your company. So get out there and get your company documents organized!

Mike Nielsen is a client account specialist with 10xmarketing - More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. For more information about Documentum, visit NextPage.com