db for web--design question

[agtjazz]

I will be developing a database in the near future and am currently designing and brainstorming. The basic idea is to have a travel form (a layout) published on the web that will be filled out via a web browser by the masses. When a user hits the “submit” button, the record is committed and an email is sent to that user and an “administrative type person” confirming their data form completion. The “administrative type person” will then have other layouts for detailed and summary reports and might have to do some minor data entry. All this I think I can handle without many problems….

But I run into questions about security when I think of how “it should be”.

This is how I think it should be:

The database (with IWP) will actually be a link from our dept website

Anyone can click on the link and submit the form (no logons required for this layout)

But for the “administrative type person”…. Those reports/layouts should only be accessed by her and so a logon would be required.

How would I set this up?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Fei]

You can link to the DB by using ODBC. Use ASP forms on the web to let people fill in the forms. Upon submit, it will email the form to the admin in plain text or what ever format u have customized. At the same time, data is entered in filemaker database for processing further by the admin. This is what I did for registering products on the web for my company.

[agtjazz]

Thanks... is there any other method?

I was looking for maybe open logins (so the majority of users don't have to login) to get to the form they have to populate

and then if anyone (basically the admin clerk) wanted to navigate to another layout, authentication would be required....

Is that possible?

[T-Square]

You can use a default account with limited privileges that IWP (Web) users see, and a second account with fuller privileges for your Administrative type. The IWP user would only have access to the one layout, while the Admin would have access to all. Scripts can test the privilege set name, and can navigate accordingly, allowing different user groups to see entirely different layouts (for example).

This assumes that the Admin type will use Filemaker directly, as I don't know that it is really possible on the one hand to automatically log in to a single account (as you wish for the majority of your users) and on the other to allow the admin to login manually. You can't, for example, put a Relogin button on your layout and allow the Admin person to relogin later, as the relogin step isn't Web compatible when the Dialog option is allowed.

Others will have different ideas, no doubt.

HTH,

David

[Martin Brändle]

The problem will be e-mailing with IWP for which there are some drawbacks (look for recent discussions in these forums).

I think you will be more comfortable by using CWP straight from the beginning for this solution.

[agtjazz]

Thanks for the feedback.

I think that I will have to put Filemaker on the administrative clerk's desk... and have everyone else get it off the web. I even think that we have enough licenses

I will look for the emailing issues with IWP....

May I ask what is CWP?

Thanks bunches

[Martin Brändle]

CWP = Custom Web Publishing

e.g. with PHP or XML/XSLT or ...