Question : Data Sychronization Strategy

We wrote a shared network application for a client.  All user on the network share the same Data MDB stored on the server.

Looking for a strategy to handle the following.

There are salesman in the organization that travel and will not always have acces to the network.  The plan is to put a copy of the data MDB (as well as the Procedures MDB) on each saleman's' computer.  When they come back into the office and can connect to the network, they want to be able to synch up thier data.  That would inlcude retrieving all current data from the server and adding any data that they have added or modified on thier local machine into the shared server file.

The end result is that on thier local machine they would have all of the data from the server merged with the data they entered while disconnected from the network.  The shared file on the server would contain the same.

I am planning to write my own routine to handle this.  it would rely on knowing the origin of each record.  Is there a unique machine specific ID I could stamp on each record?  Something like hard rive serial number or operating system serial number?

I have read about but never used replication and related 'synchronize' command.  

How to handle clashes?  For Example:  a customer files is tranferred to the salemane's machine from the network.  While on the road, the saleman updates some information on the customer record.   At the same time a network user changes information on the same customer record.  The saleman comes nack into town, connects to the network and want to synch his data.  What is the end result of the infromation on the customer record?

Answer : Data Sychronization Strategy

It is replication you request and Access 2003 handles that natively.
Here is an intro:

http://www.blueclaw-db.com/broad_interest/database-replication.htm

or google on Access 2003 replication. Lots of info here as well:

http://www.trigeminal.com/

It is not a five-minute job to setup, patience and testing is needed. And don't forget to backup anything before applying replication.

/gustav