Relational Database in the cloud

[Dani]

Hi,

I hope someone out there can help me. Envision this ... an accounts receivable / accounts payable super simple spreadsheet, to ultimately be maintained by someone who is not computer literate. It needs to be accessible from within the cloud (Google Spreadsheet, some other free SaaS product, etc) with columns similar to the following:

Company     Date     From     To     Amount     Payment Type     Details

The quandary is that I need certain columns (Company, From, To, etc.) to be completely idiot-proof and only be populated via a multiple choice dropdown from a list. It needs to be relational in the sense that is is reasonably simple to add additional company names to the list, but if there is a typo in one, or the name is altered, it retroactively updates all occurrences (a la relational database).

Microsoft Access does what I need, but I'm looking for something with a simpler UI and also that is in the cloud. With Microsoft Excel, I was able to figure out how to do data validation via a predefined list, but changes to an item in the list don't retroactively update all exiting occurrences (i.e. there's no relationship). Am I doing something wrong there?

I'm looking for something that lets me suuuuuper simply create dummy-proof tables. I just need it to be even more dummy-proof by not accepting invalid data. Does anything like that exist in the cloud???

[DaveAmour]

Why not write from scratch. HTML and JavaScript Front End, SQL Back end.

Doesn't sound like too much work, or are you only after something off the shelf?

[pritaeas]

I agree with Dave. Rolling your own is probably much simpler, because then you only build what you you need, without the additional functionalities of existing packages (if any). Often easier for the illiterate too, because there are less distractions.

Sounds like you're doing a favour for a friend. Don't know if I'd want to build a full front-end for some trivial functionality - which is turning out to be 'non-so trivial'.

[urtrivedi]

I used to make exhaustive use of database constraint and features to deal with idotic input from users and super idotic code from developer.

[Dani]

Sounds like you're doing a favour for a friend.

You hit the nail on the head, Diafol. Not so sure this is worth coding something from scratch, primarily because requirements have the potential to change in the future. I'd prefer to stick with an out-of-the-box solution that won't require constant maintenance from someone very tech saavy.