I have been asked to create a database that will serve as storage for annual report for various departments. This will be accessed thru the web (IWP) and updates to each report could be done via the web.

My boss would like to make it very user friendly and have buttons like Save Changes and Cancel Changes. The Save Changes is basically commit in my opinion. How do I cancel changes? So if a user goes into a report (that they have access to) make changes and then change their mind and hit the Cancel Changes button, what would my script look like? Do I have to store their editing in temp fields first and then when they hit Save Changes button, commit them to the real fields?

I am completely lost at this point, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Ya, unless you want to rely on the built-in "Save record changes" dialog (which appear at odd times, like by clicking out of a field), I think you'll need to make changes in global copies of your data fields. It's a bit of extra fields to have laying around, and a little scripting, but it's a pretty handy way to edit records.

One thing to consider is the possibility of a record getting edited by two different users on the network at the same time, and changes from one being overwritten by the other.

Thanks for your advice

One thing to consider is the possibility of a record getting edited by two different users on the network at the same time, and changes from one being overwritten by the other.

How do I mitigate the multi-user issue? What are my options there?

Thanks again

One way I can think of is to store the original values in a set of global variables (or another set of global fields), and when it's time to write changes back to the records, compare them to the original values that were stored and the values in the fields. If the values that were stored in the variables are different from what's in the fields, then you know some other session has changed them, and you can make some choices (or have your user make some choices) about which version to keep; whether to merge to the newest version on a field by field basis, replace all the fields with what the user has just entered, or abort the change.