seeing only my records in a shared file

[Aussie John]

HI, in a shared file, I want to limit records seen to those created by the user. I think I can do this via a portal but wanted to do it via "view as list". Is this possible?. The problem with the portal is it is not easily sorted by the user and is an all or nothing view.

[Fenton]

There are at least a couple of levels depending on how seriously you want to limit access. I'll start with the most serious. Limit access via FileMaker's built-in security, i.e., Account & password, in version 7, or unique Group & password, version 6. By unique Group I mean 1 Group per user, with its password.

Limit users access to records via the built-in record-level access privileges, validated by a calculation that has their login identity (Account or Group) equaling a field with their identity in it.

This blocks access to other's records, showing <no access> in all the fields. There's no way they can sneak around this. It's not pretty, but you run a script on file opening, and during Finds, to add their unique indentity to the criteria, so they always only find their own records. Menu privileges would be limited to Edit Only, so they couldn't Show All, unless using your scripted button, which would filter to only their records.

It's a pain to set up the passwords pre-version 7, due to the manual creation/editing of Groups and passwords. In 7 you can use its Account scripting capabilities to create and modify accounts in all files from a central file. I posted an example file in another forum doing this. I could find it if needed. There was another file also.

The security level below this is to do more or less the same scripting for limiting Finds, but use a custom login routine, capturing your own login (and optionally password) field(s) into field(s) which can be referenced from the other files.

You would be depending entirely on your control of the interface in this case, because if they get around your limits, they can see other's records.

Which you use depends mostly on how serious the security needs to be. In version 7 I think it's fairly easy to use the built-in security. In 6 it's not at all easy, so the custom login has more appeal for light security situations. Their is a plug-in to help, which would be worth it if you have to do it in 6.