I’m working on an image management application. The images are stored in FM as a reference, and access to the images is handled by windows security. A user can only see the indexing info but not the image preview if he/she does not have read access to the folder containing the image. Each department has their own folder, and only members of that department have access to that folder. Clicking on the image will open it (using Troi file) using the default Windows application for the image / document type. Again, this won’t work if the user does not have windows access to the folder.

The issue is users accessing the system using IWP.

How does windows check the credentials of an IWP user to see if they have access to a particular folder ? How do I give an IWP user access to a folder ?

Also, I’m seeing what appears to me to be strange behavior. If I access the system using IWP I cannot see any image (as expected since I don’t have authorization for that folder), but when I click on the blank image, the image viewer opens the image for viewing … on the Host PC, not the IWP client. This is not using Server, just sharing with FM9.

Together with two other developers I have spent a good deal of the last two years building a system with a similar purpose and functionality and here are some of my thoughts

First of all, get FileMaker Server Advanced. Sharing through FM Pro is a nice feature for the smallest workgroup, but it really is limited for doing what you are after.

Secondly, in order for IWP users to access the images through the filesystem you do need them to mount a share, similar, or identical to how your inhouse users are doing it. You do not say if IWP users are inside or outside of your firewall. You will probably have trouble convincing the IT department that it is a good idea to open up filesharing to external users. If that is not an option you will have to serve the images in some other way, either by embedding them in a database, or, by using some other means. In our case we are using PHP and web viewer controls.

Third, with FM Server Advanced you can tie your FM databases to an Active directory / Open directory server through LDAP, which will bring true authentication. You should probably also study FileMakers security model, and custom access rights etc.

If all you need is to share the database with a few inhouse co-workers, then keep it simple and adjust your expectations to what can reasonably be achieved

Thanks Richard. This will definitely be running with Server, I was just testing the concept first locally with FMpro.

The users would be inside the firewall – the only reason I’m looking at IWP is to save the client on FM Licenses – there could be 100 users or more.

I will look into the Authentication with Active Directory as you suggested. Thanks again.