I am working with a (legacy) Personnel file that contains both general (addresses, etc.) and confidential (SSN, pay rate, etc.) information. The desire is to permit managers to access information about employees, but NOT other managers. Currently, security settings prevent all but a very select few users from accessing any records that are marked as "management." However, this means that most managers cannot access information that is NOT confidential. Hence, there is no way, for example, for lower-level managers to pull an address list. What I really want is to set security so that individual fields are visible or not based on the Management field.

I've considered splitting the data into two tables, Confidential and General, and then limiting the access to the Confidential management tables; however, given the sheer number of fields in both categories, this seems a cumbersome process.  

First, is there a way to have security settings for select fields in select records?

Second, if not, does anyone have any ideas on the simplest way to go about achieving my goal?

Edited September 15, 20169 yr by Alaskan
spelling correction

The easiest way would be to take full advantage of FileMaker's built in security.  You can make a privilege set, or many sets that can control exactly what can be seen and what cannot, for any (every) type of user, right down to the field.

Thanks, Steve, but my complaint is actually with the limitations on FM's built-in security. Perhaps I am missing something, but there doesn't seem to be a way to change the security settings for specific fields in a way that is "on or off" depending on the record attributes.  In other words, FM Security has flexibility at the full record level, but not at the field level. 

Here's an example. For most managers, here is what I would like for them to see on two different records:

Record 1

Name: Joe Schmoe

Type:  Staff

Pay Rate:  $22

 

Record 2

Name: Betty Jones

Type: Management

Pay Rate: <<no access>>

I can use Security to create a limited privilege set for records using the calculation Personnel:Type ≠ "Management," but then, for any Management record, I will see Name: <<no access>>, etc. which isn't very helpful.  Unfortunately, at the field level, I cannot use calculations. My only options are "modifiable," "view only," and "no access," which will translate to the same settings for that field in ALL records. 

To my knowledge FM Security settings only allow you to use calculation-specified settings on entire records, not on fields.