Database Reference
In-Depth Information
an extended period of time but plans to return. That way you can easily reactivate the ac-
count when you need to. You can also use this option to create accounts for new employees
before they start.
Testing Your New Account
Creating smart security involves so many options and settings that it makes sense to test each
new account and privilege set you create. And because password characters are masked as
you type, you can't tell if you made a typo while creating it. So get in the habit of testing by
creating a new account and assigning it to the Project Manager privilege set. Then close and
reopen the file. When prompted, enter the new account name and password. Now experi-
ment. Try modifying or deleting old invoices, or editing product records. You should see
your new security settings in action. When you're done, close the file again and then open it
one more time. This time use the [Full Access] account to log in.
TIP
Write a script that lets you log in with a new account without opening and closing a file (
Change
Password
)
. You can even run Script Debugger (
Script Debugger
) while you're testing a low-access
account, but you'll have to enter a full access account name and password before you can see the de-
bugger in action.
External Authentication
If you work for an organization that uses Windows Active Directory or Open Directory in
Mac OS X, then you can take advantage of the fact that your coworkers
already
log in to
their computers each morning. Since everybody already has a company-wide user name and
password, you can use
external authentication
, which tells FileMaker to hand off the chore
of identifying people. This setup has two advantages. First, you can save yourself the trouble
of creating scads of accounts in all your database files. And when your IT department creates
a new user, or removes someone who's left the company, access to FileMaker is automatic-
ally adjusted as well. Additionally, in Windows, your users can take advantage of Single
Sign-on: They don't have to enter a password to access FileMaker if they already logged in
to their computer with their own user names and passwords.
NOTE
On Mac OS X, the system-wide Keychain handles automatic login for FileMaker just like every oth-
er program. You don't need to use external authentication to speed past the password dialog box.
Just click “Add to keychain” the first time you log in instead.
