Once you have the major features of a solution created, you are ready to add offline support to your solution. Offline support makes it possible for the solution to be stored and used on a laptop or any computer not connected to the network. Then, users can synchronize the offline data with the master database on the server.
The Access Workflow Designer tools make it possible for you to add, remove, and modify offline publications. An offline publication is a definition of all of the objects a user can subscribe to offline. It consists of a SQL Server merge publication and additional information stored in the solution database system tables. The Offline Publication pane is used to define the offline settings for the team solution.
Once the publication is created using the Offline Publication wizard, you can design filters that specify the objects that can be taken offline by specific roles. This publication is stored in a distributor database in SQL Server.
Note Before enabling offline replication, you must install offline support for the solution.
You can also add or delete publications from the Object List.
For information about finding specific tools, see Accessing Access Workflow Designer Tools.
The Tables tab is used to select the main user tables to include in the publication. All associated detail and lookup user tables are included automatically. If the default box is selected, this publication is made the default for new subscribers.
The Filter Items tab is used to specify filters that screen out data from the selected tables in the publication. You can also define relationships between main user tables to filter one table based on another. For example, you can create filters that only take the issues assigned to the logged-on user offline.
The Permissions tab is used to specify which users and roles can subscribe to the publication.
The Database Objects tab is used to designate any additional database objects to include in the offline publication. For each main table included in the publication, all associated details and lookup tables are included.