I started working for a company in the field service industry. We have a program and client database build in Access. As of right now, they are scheduling their service calls in a notebook. I am trying to get this company into this era by having a web-based scheduling software.
I have basic schooling networking but I am not a programmer nor do I know Access. I have learned how to split the database and create a multi-user environment and converted it to accdb from mdb to work with Access 2013 instead of 2003 in which it was written. These steps have greatly helped but I am not sure where to go from here.
My next step is the scheduling software but the company's greatest concern is the protection of their client database. Not from outside hackers but there is always a concern of employees selling our client list to our competitors. Also, at this time, employees do not have web access for this reason, which they will need.
Is there any way to keep the accdb file from being sent via email etc. or copied to external media? If I set up permissions through the OS, won't that make the client files uneditable (for lack of a better word) in Access? Like address/tele # changes or notes? I'm not even sure what to even search for help.
Thank in advance for your time
I understand that Access 2013 can be installed on a Server 2008 R2 or 2012 server. Put a password on the database. That should keep hackers out, and as far as keeping employees out of the data that they shoudn't be in, I know the navigation bar can be hidden, but it is unfortunately able to be viewed again by the F11 key. It would've been nice if MS could have made the navigation bar ability an easy option (yes or no), and make it modifyable in VBA....They may have. Keeping users out of raw data is something I have yet to figure out too....
I'm a novice at this stuff, but I was able to write code, and a login screen of my own so that users can have their own login ID, and a password (or phrase), and enable them to change their own password if they forget it, or if they just just to change it. You can make the navigation bar disappear by the VBA code: DoCmd.LockNavigationPane True...but unfortunately F11 can re-enable it.
Hope this helps....
Related
I have an inventory tracking Access database where a user should be able to open the "Edit Inventory" table, and edit the on-hand values of items in our department. However, the computer that uses this the most is now displaying a message of "This dataset is not updatable." I tried to edit the data from my computer as well as another user, both of which worked just fine. I checked to make sure the mapping of this computer was correct, and it is.
I am by far no expert on Access. This database pre-dates me and the creator has since retired.
That being said, I am wondering if it has to do with how this computer is logged into. Because it is a shared computer, it has very limited access to tools--it is basically only used for this inventory file. Because of the shared status, every time I open access, it asks the user to log into Microsoft, which we then skip because there is no shared Microsoft account. We log into this computer using "computername[departmentname]." I checked the client settings to ensure everything was shared and no locking was occurring. This just began occurring 2 days ago, so it is a very new issue that came up out of the blue.
Any advice or ideas is appreciated! Thank you in advance!
At work we use a program based on MS Visual FoxPro. Even though everybody uses the same password, and the information inside the program is not very delicate, I haven't been able to get the password removed. Simply because the developers want money to do the job and my boss doesn't want to pay.
I also use a BAT file to open my most used programs and websites, which are pretty much all on auto-login. Except the MS Visual FoxPro program.
I found a BAT script somewhere that waits a certain amount of time, and then mimics keyboards entries. But for some reason it doesn't seem to work on Win10.
So I am wondering if anybody knows a way to automatically sent the password via the BAT file?
The auto-login script I mention above was found here: Automatically open a browser and login to a site?
We use AutoHotkey to automate certain tasks with our own in-house VFP application. It works well. It supports Windows 10 (though we only use it on 7 and Server 2008 here)
So you have an application developed with M$ Foxpro (one of its various versions).
I cannot speak to how the developers 'built' your application. I can only speak for the various VFP applications that I have written.
When I created applications that 'asked' for Username/Password, I compared the input values against VFP Data table field values that were stored away in an encrypted manner so that the casual 'investigator' could not easily determine the values.
That assumes that the user's were allowed to create new Username/Password combinations - thereby requiring support of dynamic entries.
However the application developers could have done it in a variety of ways:
1. Store encrypted Username/Password values into a local VFP data table.
2. 'Hard code' the Username/Password into the application code prior to compilation (most definitely NOT preferred)
3. Run the input Username/Password against a Web Service where these values are stored on THEIR central system.
With those various ways as possibilities - making it more difficult to tell you which way to go, I'd recommend considering the following:
If an issue is BUSINESS CRITICAL, don't quibble over the Dollars.
Preface
I created an Information System using Visual Basic for our office in our school. It uses OleDb Engine for an Access Database. The database is stored inside the directory or locally inside the application thus making the connection string:
"PROVIDER=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source = DATA\Base\database.accdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password =cca"
The Information System makes the job done on printing, reporting, adding, deleting and editing records.
What I'm Trying To Achieve
Now I need to make the database accessible ONLINE or REMOTELY by making an unused PC be a server instead. This is the overview of what I'm trying to achieve:
and the connection string will be like (or SOMETHING LIKE)
"PROVIDER=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source = (address of the server, something like) 10.212.19.3:1234\CCA-SERVER\My Documents\database.accdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password =cca"
telling the system that it will access the database in an address online and on a specific server. Or something like, I will just put the database inside the server and through the internet it will be easily be accessed by the system like a Shared Location inside a network. If so, How can I do it? Where do I begin?
Question Conclusion
I'm trying to make a database server. We have a desktop server ready to run. I'm currently digging Google for information and guides how to make it but all I see for now is bumped threads and searching alone won't fill me enough so I decided to ask you guys if you know any
Guides.
Links to any resources.
Tips on where should I start.
Links to Tutorials.
Tools I'll be needing for the process.
NOTE: I'll update this if ever somewhere in the internet provides a
good guide/tutorial for what I'm trying to achieve and I'll put a link
to it incase someone in the future will ask the same question as I
did. For now, I'm asking for your help and brief me what I should do step by step.
Thank you.
I have an access database that has been used for many years, converted from Access 2000 to 2007 and was fine. In the last couple weeks it has been doing strange things!
There is a form for 'editing' a record. When the user clicked on the button to open this form, a small white box appeared and said 'Record Deleted'.
After that, the database was corrupted. I support this database and I can not even get into it in design view. When I try to open it (holding the shift key down while opening it), it takes a while, then it displays the Access design page that has the 'blank database' icon and to the right it lists the frequent opened databases.
So, I can't even get the to objects. The only option I had was to restore from a previous night backup. This meant the users lost all their work for the day. Today, one week later, it has happened again. All the users work was lost because I had to restore from backup.
I don't know where to begin to trouble shoot this since I can not get into it in design view when it has become corrupted. Looking for any suggestions to debug this. I can use a copy of the database I had restored.
Thanks
As a first and most important suggestion. You should split your database.You can do this from the database tools tab on top. By doing this you will have a seperate back end independat of the front end and your client will not loose any data as if they get the error / corrupted database it would not affect the data secured in the backend
Second I havent had the exact same error but in the past I have faced instances where the forms just dont work. a recommendation i read somewhere was to create a new blank form and copy over the elements from this form onto that and delete this form. I doubt if there is any problem with the VBA but it would be worth compiling the code to check.
Apologies if this does not help much, but I hope the first suggestions helps protect your client data in the instance your database crashes.
First, check if any automated VBA code or macro is running on OnOpen, OnLoad, OnCurrent, AfterUpdate, OnDirty, etc. events of the troubleshooting forms. Simply open the VBA window and look at code on the specific form's module. Or in the case of macros, open form in design view and check the Event tab of Property Sheet (and the same for specific buttons, textboxes, etc.). There may be DoCmd.RunCommands occurring when users interact with form controls.
Also, if you find yourself unable to open forms or deal with a corrupted database, consider beginning with a blank Access .accdb file and import all objects from the previous Access 2000 .mdb file. And if specific controls don't function properly, recreate them as needed.
As mentioned above, split your database between BackEnd (only tables) and FrontEnd (forms, queries, macros, modules) which prevents corruption, efficiently runs systems as only data is sent across the network and not whole application items, and overall fosters a better multi-user environment. Each user can have copies of the FE on their local machines but all will connect to one BE on a shared network. To help, Access 2007-2013 has a button for this on the Ribbon under Database Tools.
I am looking at writing a silverlight app that I plan to use OOB setting to enable use on both PC and mac.
I have been doing a little investagation on the isolationstoragefile and what I understand is it will work for both pc and mac without a problem.....Is that correct?
The application I am building is going to be a business application that will submit details back to the main database if there is an available connection. If not then I want to store the information locally until there is an available connection.
My question is lets say I have 3 user accounts using the same machine. Can I have the isolationfile stored in the same place? or must it be under the user profile?
I don't want to have orphaned records which I could see happening if the data is stored on each user's profile.
Any advise would be great!
I understand is it will work for both pc and mac without a problem.
That is correct. You don't need to worry about the mechanics of how it is persisted to disk.
I have 3 user accounts using the same machine. Can I have the isolationfile stored in the same place? or must it be under the user profile?
IS is located under the user profile. In a full trust (elevated) OOB app you may be able to store files elsewhere on the file system by using the FileSystemObject or by using some COM interop, but there is no guarantee that you can get to that file again (NOTE: i haven't played with saving files external to IS, so may be wrong/misinformed on this). If you can whack files out to anywhere on the file system you should be very careful doing it - what if you are running on a Mac?
I don't want to have orphaned records which I could see happening if the data is stored on each user's profile.
If you mean data may be stored locally because of no connection, then that user logs off and never logs back in again to that machine so their data never syncs to the server, then yes that is a possibility. Having a service monitoring for saved data files would be ideal, but you can't do that under SL. To completely eliminate that issue may take a change in your product, like writing it as a WPF client instead of SL.