Okay
Before you start, backup your database.
First you want to setup security groups...
- RestrictedUser
- SuperUser
- SuperAdmin
Create logins and assign a user to the required group. To do this, use the User and Group accounts, from the menu, "Tools" -> "Security".
Then create your permissions for the tables, forms and queries. By setting security at this level will help protect your database -- for example, SuperUsers can view forms but not edit them.
Hints:
- Use the same user account names as their respective login names on the network.
- For the database permissions, make sure to assign your users Open/Run but not give them Exclusive access.
- After setting up your SuperAdmin group / user and testing, you probably want reduce the Admin user and Admins group to minimal access. This way, if someone gets in with the known Admin user, they can't do much.
- Did I mention backups??
- Use your network security to protect the database. It should be in a Share or Folder with restricted users. Unfortunately, even the lowest of low users require update permissions since they will need to update the system tables when they login.
...Moving on
Once you have security setup, you can use it to...
- Control forms. Make controls visible or invisible (includes text fields, combo boxes, subforms, tabs on a tab form, menu options)
- If you want Record / Row security, Access does not support this. But if you add a field to the record, or parent of the record, you can either used a boolean yes/no field or a small text department field which can be checked to restrict or give access to the record. More work, but do-able.
And lastly, Access is not really considered a super secure database. You would have to upgrade to MS*SQL or Oracle or Informix like products to get the extra security.
Oh yea, one more thing, did I tell you to back up your database?
Richard
