I have developed a networked requisition program for 6 schools. The secretary for each school has access to create her requisitions. Each requisition contains a product code, product description, price, etc. In Access Privileges I have denied their right to delete to prevent the loss of records. Because this file is related to an accounts balance file that keeps track of their budget balances, I also want to prevent them from returning to a previous requisition record and changing the numbers by which they could return money to their account. In Access Privileges, I know that I can deselect the "edit" feature, but this leaves someone at a higher security level to delete records in which they have made mistakes. Any ideas?

You didn't mention the version of FM you are using, but if it is FM 5.5 or FM 6 you can set Edit, Browse, and Delete privileges on a record by record basis. You might allow editing for a few days, until a requisition is approved, etc.

-bd

I am using FM 5.5. How do I set Edit, Browse and Delete privileges to individual records? Thanks.

Once you process their requisition, you could set a field PROCESSED = "YES"

Then, in access priveledges for the secretaries, set up their password such that they can only "EDIT" records if the following calculation is satisfied.

PROCESSED (not equal to) "YES"

Additional Suggestion: Add a calculation field for display purposes on the layout...

If PROCESSED = "YES", "This Requisition has been processed", "Waiting for approval".

Then the secretary knows immediately by browsing through records not only which have been approved, but which ones they will be unable to modify should they attempt to do so.

I use a similar setup for invoices... this way staff have the whole day to make corrections, but as soon as we run the daily reports the next morning, the records become locked for regular staff.

Alternatively, you could disable their ability to edit entirely, but then the moment they leave the record after creating it, they can't make changes, so they'd have to phone in to someone with higher access priveledges to make a change.

Thank you for your help.