Using VBScript to Record User Logon/Logoff Activity in a Database
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One of the more painful procedures a help desk person (or system administrator) has to go through involves doing tech support for a remote user. Very often we don't have enough information about the user at our fingertips to be able to help them effectively. What if we had all that information easily available in a database? This article explains how to add the information you need using VBScript.
The main purpose of this article is to give you the tools you need to manipulate data in a database using VBScript.
The steps taken here describe how we would go about adding user login/logoff information into a Microsoft Access database, but you could use the techniques here for other purposes.
Where has that user gone...
Imagine the scene: a user rings up telling you they are having a problem with their system. They are using a terminal server, and are situated at a remote site. Half of your phone call could be taken up trying to find out what terminal server they are on, what applications they are running, or even if they are logged on at all!
Wouldn't it be so much easier if you could just look into a simple database or web page, and find out exactly all those details, just by knowing the user's login name? Well, if we are clever with our logon/logoff scripts, we can do just that.
We can then take this idea further, and use the same database to hold versions of software that the user has installed. You could use this to ensure they are using the correct versions of everything.
Next: Building the Database >>
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