Using Google’s geolocation API, we can program Access to locate the nearest location among many to another location, allowing Access users to choose the best location for their needs.
Our customer, a medical device manufacturer, has many trainers through out the USA, when a patient needs training they use Access to find the closest trainer who is willing to travel and has slots available.
Issues
Our client was using Google Maps to find the nearest trainer to a patient, a tedious manual process requiring a significant amount of time entering trainers and patient addresses into maps.
Google Geolocation API to the rescue.
Using the API we programmed Access to find the nearest trainer to a patient by uploading every trainer’s address and having Google calculate the driving distance to the patient. It only takes a few seconds to make the calculations and return the results back to Access.
It’s not just the nearest trainer, you also need to pick someone who’s got availability
The Access database not only shows who’s the nearest trainer, but also displays when was there last training and how many trainings have they done in the last period. Employees can then make a good judgement on who to assign the training to.
