Security Concepts

I have a script which opens the Insert File dialog box when a certain button is clicked. In the script, I have specified that the file should be stored as a reference. But, when the dialog opens (after the user has clicked on the button), they have the option to uncheck the 'store only a reference to the file' option. How do I disable this function so that user's can't override my settings and upload files into the database? Mark

I found a big problem in my custom login system. I got a file Data_1.fp7, the file store all the user name and password. I found that my database can bypass by using file refrence and see all the data inside, how can we prevent this ?

FM 8.5 and FMA8.5, all on Mac OSX 10.4.x We have field-sales reps who need a local copy of our main CRM database on their company laptops. The database consists of about 25 tables across 4 files, approx 200Mb in total. We need to look at the hypothetical possibility of a sales rep deserting us and going to another company, taking a copy of our CRM database. What is the best way to lock down the database so it cannot be copied, or cannot be run on a non-approved machine. I saw that get(systemNICaddress) could possibly be used in a startup script to check the current host against a list of approved NIC's, but I'm just wondering what others are doing…

So, we have a FileMaker database that handles access to individual records via a simple calculation, like Module::ID = "DCP". To clarify, there's a variety of records that relate to a single Module record that has an ID. Users have access to different records depending on whether that record is related to the Module that they have access to. Sometimes this relationship is indirect. It seems to be the case that if someone logs in to Account A that has access to one subset of records, and does a search for records that only Account B has access to, it (obviously) doesn't return those records. The problem is that if someone then logs in to Account B, they have lost …

Hi, I am new to filemaker 9 security. Is there a way to give a user access to create accounts and change privilege sets and passwords only? I don't want this user to have full access to the file. I just want them to be able to manage user access to the database. So I would have a user called Administrator who could create a new user and select a privilege set for that user and set the user's password. Thanks in advance for any feedback. Constance

I have a new record button on my layout that i would like to hide if the user is unable to create new records. There does not seem to be a reliable way to test if this privilege is available dynamically. Sure if i know whats in the privilege set then yes but i do not want to define my Accounts & Privileges until the end with my clients. This is annoying as the "New Record" command does greyout on the Menubar when it is not available. Maybe i am missing something, it would not be the first time. Anyone enlighten me?

[color:red]Various sources over the past couple of days have been reporting on two serious issues with OS X 10.5 Leopard that can dramatically adversely affect the security of computers and networks as well as the availability and integrity of data. Summarized briefly, these are as follows: 1. Leopard disables firewalls and opens all ports. 2. Moving files from one directory to another can result in total loss of all data. I recommend everyone's reading a couple of these reports and then assess whether your specific situation is vulnerable to one of these problems. This excerpt is from today's http://www.macwindows.com site. …

I want to track who is using our database. We are using FMP Accounts & Privileges and a custom User table in our database. (Hosted on FMPS) Is there a way to limit each logon to only allow one concurrent use? I have a sub table that tracks user log on and log off, but if the Server logs off someone (by inactivity) it doesn't write a line to the activity table. Is there a way to run a script when the SERVER logs out a user due to inactivity? Boy would I love to see get(CurrentUserList) also but that is for another thread. Jerry

I need to create permissions based on the following scenario, but can't figure out how to do so. I'm new to permissions in FMP, so it would be very helpful if you can detail how I may accomplish the following: If a user is in the LA group, then they can see all records, but only modify records where the "Office Location" field is set to LA. If a user is in the NY group, then they can see all records, but only modify records where the "Office Location" field is set to NY. If a user is in the Admin group, then they can see and modify all records. I've looked through the forums, but haven't found a situation that seemed to matched this.

I have a database built, and want to add dealer access via web. Trouble is, I have 1500 dealers. I'd like to make something easy like their company name and their account number, which only that company would know... I have the data in excel ect, but is there any way to import the username and password info easliy or do I need to hand create all these accounts?

For the purposes of e-mailing the contents of individual records (usually text information) is the .fp7 file format considered fairly secure? In other words, if someone obtained a .fp7 file and they did not have the corresponding FMP runtime application, do hacking tools exist that could enable that someone to "read it like a book"?

If I launch FM by double-clicking on the fp7 file, I don't see the menu, the screen is displayed a bit wonky. If I open the file after having launched FM, it all works fine. What should I look at? I have Login using guest account, guest is active and it has basic permissions to a table (to allow a re-login script). If I use an admin account instead of guest, no problem... If I let the re-login script run and login with an admin account, the menu eventually comes back and the display corrects itself. I have used the same logic for another application without problem. I am obviously missing one small thing... I've tried simplifying the splash screen, using th…

I need help. I need to develop a FMP database for a customer who has around 3000 employees. The plan is to have a website accessible by empoyees once they have been recognized by the database. The web info may be accessed only if you log in the databse. The web has about 10 realms with 3 different user lists. Up to now it has always worked using 2 sign on. One for the FMP and one for the web. The objective is to have a "Single Sign On" (SSO). Does someone have an idea how I could do that? All on Mac platform. I know I could use OS X Server (LDAP) but the problem is that FMP handles the access privileges by group and not by user ID. I need to access the DB …

Hi all, sorry if this has been visited, I have tried searching but can't seem to be able to find the solution. I am trying to do 2 things. The first thing that I would like to do is have it so file maker logs in to the database as a guest if there has been no 'activity' 5 minutes (assuming that it is opened by a user other than guest). 2. The second I would like to do is for the system to lock a record (this is normally done by manually changing a field to Lock from unlock) if it hasn't been modified after x amount of days. Would this possible for someone without too much experience? THX!

when logging in from one windows machine on the network (via open remote / or launcher file) the user is presented with the username and password however their credentials are not recognized. I can log in with my credentials see they are in the list then I delete that user exit out of the db and log back in as them. This works for a few days then once again they cannot access the db. They have no method to change passwords. I did find one odd thing when the password dialog box loads there is a space in the user name field. I am wondering why it is there, forcing us to delete the character each time. Any one see this?

After my users log in to my solution, a startup script invokes an applescript to mount a shared network volume. My users are impatient and "don't get it" when it comes to security, subsequently they don't want to have to enter their username and password again at the network login prompt. So my goal is to retrieve their FileMaker username (using Get(AccountName) and password (using ) to pre-fill the OSX "Connect To Server" window as the applescript executes. Is there a way to retrieve the current user's Filemaker password using a 'GET' function, the same way I've retrieved his/her account name? Or any other way to accomplish this goal? Many thanks--

I've just installed a new Multi-user Database in my company. 7 Major files with 300 users. I've set up the Accounts and Privileges, and use one file to for the users to login. The 'Open Script I use then calls the Open Script for all 6 other files - with a $User varaible set to the Account Name (And passed in to the scripts), and a default password thats used for 6 of the files. However, I keep getting an error 9 - Insuffucient Priveleges - even though the scripts are marked with 'Run Script with Full Acess Privileges'. I'm in a deperate bind - If any one can help thanks

Not sure if this is the right place or not, but - Is it possible to lock a record so that no additional changes can be made to it? I'm making an order database and once an order is complete I'd like to prevent accidental changes. -Matt

Surely there must be a way to give users the ability to print without giving them access to all of the menu commands? However, I can't seem to be able to find the magic settings that can do this. If I check the allow printing checkbox under Other Priveleges the only way printing is actually allowed is if I select ALL from the Available Menu Commands. All I want to do is allow my users to print some reports without giving them access to dangerous commands like Delete All Records.

I recall having a dialog with OAM where there was a mention of data being encrypted during transfer. I am working on a seperation model the data file is hosted by the server, the GUI is on the client machine. If i setup my GUI file to try a local IP then a static WAN IP for the data file is it safe. (trys one then the other). My question is if i simply open up a port for access to my roaming user is the machine and data transfer safe? Do i need to do this by VPN or is the seperation model via the internet secure? Any thoughts or advice? best Stuart

Hi All, One question here for you guys. I have been able to limit users access/modification privileges fairly easily using FileMaker 8. I have something now that I have not run into before. I have a Privilege Set that I need to create that has multiple parameters for authentication before users under this Privilege Set can edit records. 1. Our "Market" field must not equal "New York 1" 2. Our "Status" field must equal "Leased" Now, here lies the problem. If I add just one of these parameters into the editing calculation for that Privilege Set it works fine. I can't use both, if I do nothing works. this is what I added to the editing calcul…

Sorry to ask this, but I cant find a simple answer anywhere. I have multiple tabs in my file, and only one table with 60 or so fields total, so say 10 per tab. I want to block people to only use one tab (so only 10 fields). I dont mind if they can click the other tabs, I just dont want them to be able to read the information in them. I think I need to mess with the field access but when I go to custom privileges it pops-up the specify calcuation box and I have no idea what to type in. Say I want to allow access to 3 fields titled - FirstName, LastName, and Phone. How would something like this look in the dialog box? Thanks -todd debacker

I have a file that requires 3 levels of access. Manager (see everything) State manager (See only records that are in their state) User (see only record that belong to that user) Using "define accoutn and privs" I've managed to get Manager and user to work with "custom record privileges". Setting it to limited and using AccountName = Get ( AccountName ) to set the user level and show only record that belong to that account name. Manager has view everything so that was no problem This was working fine until they requested State managers will need to see all records that belong to their state.. My thinking on this was along these line... …

I have run acrosss a very strange problem and can't find a reason for it anywhere (only a workaround). On two different systems being served by Filemaker Pro 8 Server Advanced, when a user account has a password with an "@" as a part of the password, actions that include "view=" seem to somehow take part of the password and translate it into part of the URL. This causes an error message saying that there is a problem loading the page. When I change the "@" to something else, the problem goes away. Does anyone have an answer as to why this is happening???

Hey eveyrone, I am new to filemaker, but am moving along quickly. I have developed a good chunk of my database already, but I have been doing it so the different sections are tabbed (payroll, contacts, job list, etc.). I just realized how I need to be able to only allow certain people into certain tabs and also allow only certain actions. I think the certain actions thing might be fairly easy with privelages, but I have no idea how to set passwords on the tabs. How can I password-protect the tabs? Thanks -todd debacker

When I go into accounts and privileges it shows me all the account names but no passwords. In version 6 I used to see the passwords. Is there any way to do that with version 7?

Good evening, I do realize i am completely new to your community and hope i am not intruding to much. I am not a filemaker user but i have being hired to migrate an existing filemaker 4 app. All I was given was the application ( Solution i think in your parlance ). When i run it it in Filemaker 9 pro it gets converted into the new format. But when i run it i get a message saying that it can't run on my operating system. I think this is a user generated message and not a message from Filemaker per se. This happens no matter what user i run it as, the admin user is disabled but i did get the password of another user. I really need to access the data. The prev…

I have walked into a mess. Did a project 10 years ago with FMP 4.0. I spent about 2 years working with this company to create an application. They brought someone in to update this Application and did a 4.0 to 8.5 upgrade. None of the passwords that were on the old system now work in the new or in the old system either. I have tried all of the passwords that I put into the system originally. There were only 3 types: Admin for full layout/program control, User: used to edit/update records, guest: to view and print records. The only access that we now have is guest. I really don't want to rewrite all of this again. I have no idea what this person did. Can anyone hel…

I'm in the process of trying to setup my FM 8.5 Server and Clients to using External Server Authentication for all security. I've setup all the groups and the Privelage sets in all my files. The problem I am having is I don't understand how I can have multiple security sets on a single file with multiple layouts. For instance: The file named Galaxy has 30 different layouts. I have 2 groups made, FMSales and FMAccounting. Both groups can view all layouts in this file. I want FMSales to be able to edit a layout called Order Entry, but FMAccounting would only have view only access. I have another layout in this file called Invoice, that I want FMAccounting to …

i'm using FM Developer 6. i've created a file with access privileges and it was running smoothly for 2 years. now when i try to open the file, an error message comes out saying 'the access previleges in this file have been damaged or pssibly tampered with' what shall i do to be able to overcome this problem ?

Hi all! I have an FM DB that I distribute to a few branch offices. Each office has their data in it and each office has their accounts, privelege sets and passwords in it. From time to time I want to send them an upgraded file. When they get that they will click a button and all the data from their file "flies" into the new file via import/export. Filemaker is "readied" for this as for example there exists the function "Set next serial value" which allows you to transfer the next serial values from one file to another. However, I havent worked out how to transfer the accounts automatically from one file to another. I already manage my accounts in a seperate…

I have two solutions...both have identical privilege sets for editing users. In one, Layout Mode is entirely greyed out (like a Read Only set), in the other solution it allows access to Layout Mode but won't let users amend anything on the layouts. I want to ensure that Layout Mode is greyed out on the second solution, but can't understand why it won't grey out. I want users to be able to view the layouts in Browse Mode and be able to Create, Edit and Delete records just like in solution one.

Hi all, I'm trying to create some different accounts with different privelege sets for my database. Currently there's just one, a "guest" account with full access that is automatically logged into when FMP starts. Whenever I try to create a new account and give FMP a password to use, either temporarily or permanently, I click "OK," and when I look at the setting again, Filemaker has automatically changed the password some unknown 20-digit key. I have no idea why or how, and I can't get it to stop. any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

I could not find a "newbie" section so I apologize in advance. If I designed a front end for a specific industry could I lock down the front end so it could not be copied and used by a competitor or have a company purchase one license of my "custom software" and open it up and modify it for themselves??? I'm sure the database can be locked down tight but not shure about the UI. tia Morgan

Hi, While FileMaker 8.5 provides a very granular access control over Records, Layouts, Value Lists, and Scripts, I have not found a way to control access to specific tab of the tab panel control. Because all tabs share the same layout, I cannot use layouts as the way of restricting access. Is there any way to control access to tabs within FileMaker Accounts and privileges? I am currently using a popup window as the only way the user may edit the fields. This means an additional click and layout, but it does allow me to run scripts after global fields are filled (for instance, check validity, fill in other fields, check if all fields are not empty, etc.). Th…

Here's the scenario: Once my clients have authenticated via an external server, I would like write a script in which the Account Username would do 2 things: Populate a field named "Teacher" in on of my layouts (LessonPlanner). Do a find that looks up all the records with that Account Username as "Teacher" in that particular layout. I know that I will have to add an extra step for first time users in the script which will populate the "Teacher" field with the Account Username and request new record. On top of all of this, I would like to find a way in which users would only be able to read/write their own records, and keep all others as read only. …

Hi, I have school information that I need to encrypt into the database. I need to make sure that each record with the certian information is encrypted before it is closed. Any ideas? I am lost... Thanks Roger

I am upgrading all of my applications to Filemaker Pro Server 8 Advanced and would like to allow users to access the ones that are read-only without a username and password. I have tried automatically opening the database with a password and enabling the Guest account, but nothing works. Is there a way to do this with CWP?

I am in the process of developing a database that will be used by 12 or so people via IWP. I have to lock down the pages so that everyone can read it, but only a department rep can update their department report. So my departments are: Com, EFL , Mus, Phil, PS, KHP etc . All can review the other departments’ reports, but only COM can edit Com’s report. Do I do different layouts ( based on department) or ? What is the best way to handle the multi user environment in regards to security? If anyone can direct me to examples to study, I would surely appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone, I have used filemaker for quite some time, basically for data entry, now I am creating my own data base for my own home business. Basically I have it set up like this: Title field: Rating field: Locations field: Notes field: Data field: Right now, I have 2 questions. I have set up web publishing, but when my partner tries to access it from another computer via the web, it asks for a login name & password? I never put that anywhere? I have no clue what that would be, does anyone know where i would find that? The other question is, I would love to build a Label stamp for my data portion. Basically where I click…

In researching the help files for information about password protection, I came across the following statement: "Your password may expire at a regular intervals." I am curious about how to do this. How do you go about attaching time constraints to passwords? Can this be done within the application or does this require some kind of external plug in? Thanks for any insight, Jarvis

I have a database that tracks purchase orders, budgets,etc. I am wanting to restrict access to certain records. If a user is a division director, I want them to be able to see all purchase orders created by anyone in their department. If a user is not a division director, then they only see records they have created. I set this script up to run upon the file being opened. The globals referenced are calculated unstored fields. I am not sure whether to have them as global auto-entered calc fields or as global text fields and have the information set by the script. The script is set to run with full access privileges. I have not been able to make it work. Any suggest…

[blurb] [big] [color:red]The Importance of Maintaining Data Integrity and Availability In FileMaker Pro Databases [/big] By: Steven H. Blackwell Platinum Member, FileMaker Business Alliance FileMaker 8 Certified Developer FileMaker 7 Certified Developer Comprehensive, real-time maintenance of data integrity and data availability in FileMaker Pro databases is an on-going and significant challenge for business owners, database developers, database administrators (DBAâ��s), and IS/IT managers in organizations of all types and sizes. Whether you are a government agency in the health care field, an airline maintenance department, a …

I am using a database that restricts access to certain records. I use the Get(AccountName) in a global field and I am trying to use the Get(PrivilegeSetName) in a global field but nothing is returned for the value. The other function Get(AccountName) works fine and I mirrored the privilege set function the same. Please tell me what I am missing.

Is the following a true statement? [color:green]Anyone with FileMaker Advanced can use Add File Reference to tap into the data file of a distributed runtime -- even though it had been "bound" as a runtime component and Administration Access has been removed. My testing says it is. Does anyone have a different experience? Is there a countermeasure? (i.e., a way to prevent it?) Thanks for any advice.

Hello, my business is growing real fast so i want to be prepared for the near future. i have a database with 1000 records, every record is a client. each record contains the personal information of the client and the due date of his/her invoice. i have file maker server 8. I need to allow access to each of my clients to his/her record to see when they have to pay. Is that possible? Thanks in advance.

Hi guys, hope someone here is able to offer some advice (and I posted this in the right forum). Basically I have created a PO system that everyone at my company has thought 'ooo that's nice can we use it' it isn't anything special or earth shattering really. However I am aware that in order for me to be able to roll this out to multiple users I need to be able to restrict the records being viewed based upon the user accessing the DB and the group they belong to. So my question is this. Is there any way in FM 8.5 I can restrict the found records (and keep them restricted) that the currently logged in user can browse based upon their group or username. When…

Is it possible to remove user access to the Copy Records feature? My PC-based runtime solution uses a custom menu with a very limited set of commands available to the user, and the Copy Record command is not listed anywhere on the menus -- yet when I right-click in an open area of a layout, a Copy Record option appears. Selecting it causes useless results to be placed on the clipboard. I'd like to disable it or remove it, but I haven't yet found a way. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Hello I want to set conditional privileges in certain tables/forms where each user will only have access to certain records (multiple records). I have stored the values of the accessable records in a global array for each user. However, I am not sure how to access all the values in the array in the 'custom privileges' calculation dialogue box and set the appropriate field (in this instance primary key) equal to each one separately. I'm not sure if this is clear or not, but, if so, any ideas?

I have a completed app. I use "Exeshield" to protect my runtime. It works flawlessly. However the actual database is a .usr (rather than .fp7) and when one opens up the .usr file in Filemaker Pro, there is a program they can use to access my code and scripts. It extracts the login and password. The program is called "Filemaker Password Recovery" and I need to make my app so no one can access this. I guess I need a way to make it so when I edit the file my password and login will be secure. any advice??

FileMaker 7.0v3 50 plus files - each with one table per file Hosted without FM Server Each file has 3 types of accounts setup: Full Acess, Edit or Read Only. Each individual file uses the same Username & passowrd. different for each subset (Full, Edit, Read Only) but consistent throughout each of the 50 plus files. How can users now access multiple files without having to log in to each file seperately?

I made some DB and set privilege to 'only look'. But I made another mistake. I set the 'file Option --> Open/Close --> When openning this file --> log use 'read only account'" When I open the database, every function can not be use, privilege set is not operate in 'Edit' menu. Because this account is read only and cannot do anything include changing priviege set.. How can I solve this problem? How can I change the using account? Can't I this DB anymore? Sorry my poor english, I am asian in Beijing...

Last week I started developing a 'multi-user' version of a working database. I started from a copy of my working one, so assume all user account details would remain the same? On Friday I was hosting it on my Mac under my user name and password 'admin' , as usual. I was also loading it from a PC under another user name and password. Today, I can't open it on either machine, using either account. I have to assume I've done something stupid, but I can't see what. I guess a day's work is lost and I must start over and WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN, but I honestly don't think I've forgotten the passwords as I always use the same ones. Could anything else have happened …

We've got about 20 FM files that all work together as our entire solution...it's been developed over the last 12 years or so way before you could put everything in 1 file and is a scary thought to try and consolidate now. I need to make some changes to accounts and privelages but maintaining this across all files is somewhat of a pain. I'm curious if there's some kind of trick or tool out there that allows me to edit all of them at once. If there's a way to do it via the CWP/XML I'm comfortable with that. Any information would be great. Thanks!

When I launch my standalone app, I'm prompted by a dialog box as follows: Open "MTC Data" using: ( ) Guest Account (x) Account Name Account Name: Jonathan B. Goode [the Mac OS X account name] Password: [ ] Add to Keychain (Change Password...) (Cancel) (OK) I'd like for it to preload the account name with "staff" rather than the OS account name. The password field should be blank and the user must fill this in. I don't want assistance from Keychain. I don't want a user to be able to change the password. File Options would appear to be the place to control this, but it appears there are only three options: -- No a…

Hey all- My boss wants my newly created FileMaker Sales System to store the credit card info of our customers. Naturally, this makes me nervous. What is the common wisdom on this subject? Is storing the number in a field and then guarding our FileMaker log-in passwords an acceptable level of security? Is there an additional level of encryption necessary (and is there even any encryption of the data in FileMaker)? Should we not store them at all? Thanks in advance for any input, Nate

i have set up access to our database via our server and password protected the file. however people have been able to open our db w/o having to sign in. any thoughts?

I want to be able to hide the scripts from the menu. Is there a way to do this? I am running FM7. Thanks Rick DeCollo

I have some CWP pages that need to be accessed via authentication and others that need to be anonymously accessible. The way I understand FileMaker security, I can only accomplish this if I make all CWP access authenticated. Thus, I'd like to submit the username/password for the anonymous CWP pages for the user (so that they do not have to enter this information), but I'm not sure how to do it. I was hoping there was a way to do it directly in the URL query (we don't care if people can read this information), as I don't understand how to pass the data between XSL pages. If anyone has any tips, it would be greatly appreciated.

Urgent help needed. I have three databases which had been working fine with no problems. Then in the last two weeks or so, they have been erratically asking me for passwords. I've checked File Options in the dropdown File Menu (which does have a blue checkmark next to it), but in all three, the Log in using... is NOT checked. In the last two weeks, sometimes I couldn't open the db by clicking the file name or doing a File Open, but I could get to the other two by going into one of them and opening the other two from it (because they're all related). All of a sudden today, I can't get into two of them at all. They continue to ask me for non-existent passwor…

I am serving a system on the web and would like to be able to distinguish between users by privilege set. I have defined a user name NormalUser and defined the Privilege Set as [Data Entry Only]. I put logic into my FMP Script to clear some fields when this user is encountered. However, it seems that the Privilege Set that is recognized when I logon as that user and run the script is actually [Full Access]. How is this possible??? I even defined other privilege set names to distinguish users, but these turned up as [Full Access} as well. What is the point in defining other Privilege Set Names if somehow [Full Access] is the only one that shows up??? Anyone have…

smiley-smile smiley-smile hello all, I have a school database, which has one main object "school" and three other objects "teachers", "courses" and "non-teaching staff". The database should serve as a form. So from every school there will be only one representative, who is going to fill in the form. I am know thinking about how to generate an appropriate password system which meets this requirement. I.e. A school representative should be able to create one record (for his school) and to fill in that record, but nothing more. Can I generate such an system with the passwords option that provides FileMaker. (I have version 6.0) Greetings fr…

I have a solution that uploads files via FTP (using NetTools) and creates/addes htaccess/htpasswd accounts to an .htaccess file. To create the htpasswd I have scripted NetTools to go out to a site that has a free htaccess encryption tool. The problem here is that sometimes the website times out, gets funky, etc. I would love to build in the htaccess encryption into a FM calculation to avoid these periodic issues. Has anyone done this, know how to do it, know how the encryption works? I think it uses MD5. Thanks for any response. Michael

Hi - I have been trying to figure out how to effectively copy protect a runtime database, and have determined that it is not possible to do it in any way that isn't very awkward - more below. I have also determined what it would take to accomplish this effectively, and it isn't all that much - also explained below. If anyone else thinks this is important, I would encourage you to put in a feature request to Filemaker on their website - you can copy the relevant part of this post. This is most important if you distribute your solution to many users rather than a few large companies. Here's how I see this: A runtime consists of the runtime executable and yo…

Heya all! Question. I want to not allow certain users with certain privelege sets to add records to a table under certain cirumstances. In the Priveleges and Privelege sets under "Records" I can say YES/NO/LIMITED under the EDIT item but NOT under the CREATE item, there only yes/no exists. Depending on a Global Variable I want to allow or disallow users to add entries into a Table (subrelation). Any ideas how i can do this given that the LIMITED option isnt there? Should it be there? Is it a bug in 8,5? thanks Spongebob

This forum has been a life-saver for me on this temp job. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience and knowledge of the software. I have password-protected a database, using the Admin account. When I set up the protection several weeks ago, I tested it and it worked. Now, however, I'm no longer asked for a password. Is Filemaker saving the login info on each computer? If so, is there someway to undo that?

Is there a way to prevent all users from using the "return" key to "Perform Find"?

Question, Is there a way to have a limited view for a certain privlege set based on a yes/no drop down menu? Eg: Sales cannot see records that are tagged "No" in the "Active" field. I have a calc set up for another department where users can ony see records that have assigned to. Keeping our sales department from seeing inactive records is pretty important for us. Thank You In Advance,

Hi All, I was wondering if there is a way to still allow the creation of New Records but prevent the ability to duplicate records. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks,

Hello, Everyone I've looked for a resolution on this, and couldn't find one throughout the posts, so I thought I'd ask: I am using FM 8, I have set up a series of job departments, where as the manager will only have access to the employee records that report to him/her. Question is, I can set up the privledges to have access to only those with their name as the department manager, but it also brings up others showing as records, along with it. (those reporting to a higher level) Is there a way to set this up within the privedges to omit these records from showing at all? I am trying to get it, so they see only see, their 5 employee records, vs, the 10 records, …

Someone I know wants to distribute a runtime (FMP8.5 Adv) to colleagues of his in some countries where it is mandatory to let the authorities know what kind of encryption is used in the software. Does anyone here know what kind of encryption FileMaker uses to protect passwords in runtimes? What length would the encryption keys be? I know nothing at all about this stuff, so I hope I asked the right questions regards, Ano

Hello. I am a brand new FileMaker Pro user coming over from a Microsoft Access background. I am having an issue with an application that I have created. Through security and privileges I have managed to control the records that a user can view / edit, but I have not found a way to get rid of the records. My application has a field called "Created_By" that captures the account name of the user that creates the record. In security / privileges I use a "Created_by= Get (Account Name) to restrict the records that can be viewed / editied. I actually have the application set-up so a supervisior can see their records and their direct reports' records. Everything I am doin…

I am seeing something in one of my solutions that I have never seen before (see attached graphic of Accounts & Privileges window). In the accounts/privileges setup, one of the accounts appears to have gotten corrupted during creation. No account name or privilege set is listed for the account. It was supposed to be an externally authenticated account, but the account type says "Filemaker" (the account type is the only bit of information listed for the account, and even that's wrong). Filemaker will not let me edit it, delete it, duplicate it, inactivate it or do anything else with it through the Accounts & Privileges window except move it up and down the authe…

I am preparing a run time demonstraton disk. I want the client to be able to add/delete/edit records, but I want to deny them printing privileges. This was easy to do on the FMP 4 password set up, but in FMP 8 Advanced I can't find how to set it up. Hope this is still possible. Will appreciate any help and thanks.

Maybe this is an obvious one, but I did browse and search a lot before posting. What would be the best approach to let multiple users privately access the same table, while keeping intact as much native FM functionality (e.g. searching, sorting, exporting) as possible? I was leaning towards a single table solution w record privileges based on log in accounts as often recommended. (e.g. techbrief_security.pdf) The users being able only to read/write their own records, but the whole set being easily maintained and operated, calculated upon etc for administrators. What are the cons? How get rid of the 'no access' screen for no access records? What a…

Filemaker Pro 8 Tech Brief states: "While scripted Account management can administer internally authenticated Accounts, this process can easily become cumbersome and error prone with a larger number of files." How do you go about doing this? I'm fairly new to FM 8, it's been a while since I've use FM and I don't have that many files to admin, 4 or 5. Not really in production yet and was just wondering if there is a way to push account management across mulitple files. I know, I know, External Auth but that's not an option right now...

I have a current file that I can't open, it has no password but each time I try to open it I am asked for an account name and password, I only have two account names and neither of those works - can anyone offer a solution

Unlike many who develop projects that require minimal to high elements of security logins and passwords, my small standalone programs are for my association members. No logins, no passwords, nuttin' just good old fashioned access to a membership database with lots of useful information. Problem is, something got twisted in the Accounts and Privileges area and I am faced with answering a login request (Admin by default and no password), both in the development version and the compiled runtime version. It will not allow me to compile when requesting no Administrator privileges, etc. etc. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Ver 8, the privileges area is at the de…

Is it possible to have one database contain all access privileges and have other databases reference it? I have two databases with a large amount of mutually exclusive users that I need to allow to both now. Does any one know of a way to automate this? Incidentally, the majority of the users access the databases via IWP over the internet.

I've got a served FMP8 database that always open with the user ADMIN on open. I'm not sure why that's happening. I have security set up with AD groups with the exception of the Admin local account. All accounts are active. I've tried opening the solution on multiple PCs, but always get the same result (account name = Admin). I have a second database with similar set up, but that one opens correctly (without the admin user). Any thoughts on what's wrong? I can't deploy like this. :)

A little background first. I uploaded my FM file to my hosting provider who provides Instant Web Publishing. I wanted to have the db open in a web page w/o any login. What I discovered is that if it is setup as having only guest access (no admin access) in IWP will it do so. So far, so good. I can log in as admin on the fmsa protocol and have complete admin access. Here is where I'm encountering a problem. I have a local copy of the db that I want to use to generate reports, export html and the like. Why? Because it's faster. I'm locked out of the local file. The File > Define menu item is grayed out. File Options opens but won't allow access t…

In relation to my previous thread, I also wanted to know how I can share my file, but only allow certain users to access it only if they have the password to a file. I'm not talking about restricting certain fields, but mainly just having a password to the entire database for anyone that tries to access it via the the same computer, and along a network. Thanks.

Hi! I have two files on two computers at remote ends of the internet. The filemaker file A opens filemaker file B in a script across the internet and they import and export data to and from eachother as well as do set fields from one file to another. Question: Is there a plugin or tool that can radically encrypt ALL communications between two filemaker files on a filemaker level with say at least 40 bits? The info is semi sensitive and I want the datastream to be encrypted. In fact does filemaker do operations like that in "the clear" anyways? Thanks Spongebob

Hi guys, dont know if this is the right forum to ask this, but is there a way of preventing editing a record (and its children) once the user adds another record or goes to another layout without firing a script! I was thinking I could do something using a timestamp, basically, give the user 5 minutes to key a record before it becomes locked, but is there any other 'better' method anyone can suggest? Thanks Jalz

I have a runtime solution that I need to create a timeout script for. Basically, I need the user to be kicked off after a certain period of inactivity. Any ideas?

Hi, I want to create a password protected layout that multiple people can access... I know what you thinking.. use the account privliges, right? The problem is the environment that my staff works in. They log on for the day and then move about without logging out, and logging out is NOT a vialable option every time they leave their desk.... So I want to create a password protected layout. Here's my initial thought... create a field and use an if/then field to verify that the password matches the entry. But I am running into complications.. I wanted to use a global field for the verifying password step, but if there are multiple people, then what? I w…

Hi, I'm trying to use the relogin script with a custom dialog. I have 2 global fields that hold a username and password which the relogin script uses. In the documentation, it says that a person can try to login 5 times unless error capture is enabled. As far as I can tell in my tests, I can try to login as many times as my heart fancies. Additionally, if the login fails, it just kicks me out of the script. What do I have to do to get the custom dialog screen to come back up, some sort of wacky loop? Is there a way for the relogin script to report that it failed so it'll know when to loop? How do I get it to deny a user if they've failed to login 5 times?

Is there a plug in or custom function that would help in writing a log file that would write an entry of the stats available in the Define Database Table tab upon login and exit? The log table would show the username, the status of each table in the database and possibly a few more statuses that would be summaries of a few of the tables. I've looked through the scriptwriter to see if there is anyway to export or save table stats but don't see anything short of the big DDR and then I'd have to be able to do something with XML. . . Thanks in advance.

Technical Briefs and White Papers as Invaluable Developer Resources By: Steven H. Blackwell Management Counseling Service Partner Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance FileMaker 7 Certified Developer™ FileMaker 8 Certified Developer™ In this venue and in many other ones in the past six weeks or so, a number of developers and other users of FileMaker Pro have raised a number of questions about the behavior of various members of the FileMaker Family of Products or about their proper deployment. These have ranged from conversion issues from older versions, to external authentication, to record level access privilege behaviors, to proper hardware require…

I am using what could be loosely called the Data Separation model. This is not a file that will be served or published to the web, it will be compiled into a runtime eventually. I have the "Main Menu" file in the main directory, another database in it's own directory which holds account, and registration information, and a third directory which holds all of the files. I would like to be able to restrict access to the Files, and the Accounts database, so users can only open it through the Main menu. I know it cannot be that difficult but it's something I'm missing. Ideas, or something to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Is it possible to disable the login/password dialog that pops up whenever you launch a file in v. 8.5? If so. How? My client does not need the aggravation nor the security of this feature. Thanks in advance.... Chris

I purchased a program called FMKEY and it completely reverse engineered my FM solution by re-writing all passwords including my admin account. Is there a way to stop this? Or does anyone have any recommendations? I also just bought Datavault and implemented that, but I do not know how to encrypt usernames or passwords. Thanks

I can't seem to figure out how this would work. It may be simple, but I'm not seeing the way forward. The setup: One backend (data) file, with two different front-end (UI) files, both connecting to that same back-end. The two FE's in effect are two separate applications (they'll almost never be used simultaneously by the same person, and many users will never use both) but they share certain data. Let's call these FE's App A, and App B. In particular they both use a table (Households) as a primary data element. The wrinkle is that each app should have access to only some of the records in this table. App A will have access to most, but not all, of t…

I have a hosted solution, and I was wondering if there was a way that I could prevent the same user account from being used at the same time by different people. Ideally, if a second person tries to access the database with an in-use account and password, that person would be kicked out. Anybody have any ideas?

I am running a filmker Pro 7 Database in One particular text filed how to write protected a text data and i want every one hours that particular text filed auto save and wirte protectd. Please give me a advise Thank you B.Santosh Kumar

I am working on editing some content for a database. It was created in FP5 (I think, but I have since saved it as an .fp7 file). We have hosted the database online, and users can't print reports, so we are contemplating using REMOTE access to the IP. I logged in as the various users, and it gave me administrative access, regardless of the login that I used. That is a big problem. I was wondering which privileges need to be edited to force the database to use the current privilege and access settings, rather than overriding them. Thanks, Ian

I'm having a really bad day. Recently I have been unable to open fm7 files with their correct passwords. Going crazy. Finally, being on a network, I made some test files, put them on the network drive and went to another workstation. It opened fine. From my workstation I keep getting the error message from fm that it can't open file with the username and password I entered. At least I know I'm not insane and do know my passwords. Anyone have any idea why just on my machine I can't get in? I even created new files to test with and they work on the other worksation, not mine. As soon as I create a password and close the file I can't get back in. HELP! Mike : : :

So, I have a database that I've created a script for that creates a backup copy every third time the file is closed. I would like to restrict access to this file (i.e. either hide it or password protect it). It is on a shared drive, so the backup must be there as well (can't just redirect the backup file to another storage location for certain reasons). Any ideas? Thanks

I attempted to open a FP version 5 file, which has a password for full access priveleges, using FP version 7.0v3. FP7 prompted me for the name to save the old version under and where to save the converted file. Once I'm done with those, it asks for a username and password. I enter what I know to be the username and password that I originally used, and it rejects it. Other possible factors are that, since the last time I worked on the FP5 file, I have upgraded our OS to Mac OS X 10.4.7. Also, my hard drive crashed and I had to take it to a specialty place to get the files recovered. Most files were recovered fine and all the other FP5 files - which do not have pa…

Ok here is what I need to do. I have a database with many fields used to controlling the disposition of material. I also have a need to lock this data after it has been approved. (no problem with this). Now here is the issue. I need all those fields locked with the exception of 3 fields that need to be edited at a latter time, These fields would be for such things as entering in a RMA number, when the date replacements have been brought in, or a closed date when the item record has been finished. How can I lock fields of a record, but not all fields? James FM 8.5 Pro/Advanced FM Server 8