Creating an Offline Publication

See Also

Before creating an offline publication, you must install and enable offline replication for your team solution. For details, see Installing Offline Support for the Team Solution. After installing offline capabilities, you can control which database objects are available offline by creating offline publications. An offline publication is a definition of all the objects required to create the local (replicated) copy of the database. The publication contains information about the database and the Web files for the team solution.

Your solution can have multiple publications, each with different filters and permissions, for use by database users in different roles.

Important   Because Access Workflow Designer uses SQL Server merge replication, you cannot replicate tables with timestamp columns.

When a publication is created, by default, all objects in the database are included in the publication. For every main table you include in the publication, all of the associated detail and lookup tables are included. These objects can be removed later from the publication using the Database Objects tab. In addition, when creating the publication in the Offline Publication wizard, you can select tables to exclude from the publication. For more information, see Specifying Database Objects for Offline Use.

To create an offline publication

1. Open your solution in the Access Workflow Designer. For details, see Opening your Solution in the Access Workflow Designer.
   
   
2. In the Object List, right-click Offline Publications, and choose Add Offline Publication.
   
   
3. The Offline Publication wizard includes a series of pages for creating publications. The following information must be provided to create the publication:
   • Publication Information page   Specify the publication name and optional description for your offline publication. Click Next.
     
     
   • Main User Tables page   Select the tables you want to include in your publication. All tables designated as main user tables are displayed. To ensure all your forms and Web pages work while offline, use the Select All option. When you select a main table, all associated detail and lookup tables are included in the publication.

     Note   If no tables are available, click the Add Main Table button to create main user tables for your team solution. This opens the Main Table Selection wizard. For details, see Identifying Main User Tables.

   • Offline Permissions page   Specify which database roles have access to the publication. If you do not want everyone to have access, clear the public role. For information about adding database roles to your solution, see Creating Database Roles.
4. Click Finish.

The publication may take several minutes to be registered on your server.

For information about modifying your offline publication, see Modifying an Offline Publication.