Front End questions

[lionelnz]

Hi All. Bit new to Frontend/backend stuff so bear with me.

For easier management on my part I am thinking of putting the FE for
users on their shared folders on the network & having the staff create
a link from their shared folder to their desktops. Can you think of any
reason why this would not work OR that it is not a good way to go about
it?

If I made the FE for users read only, will that impact on their ability to use the DB such as add diary notes to students records?

When familiarising myself with the DB I accidentally deleted data in a form used to look up individual student records. How do I prevent data being changed in that form to prevent users doing what I did? (Hence my earlier question about FE being read only!)

Cheers

 

[Dartagnan]

Depending on the number of users you could have performance issues.

Do you need to secure the tables? Are you OK with users possibly manipulating data at the table level.

From what I have seen local copies tend to get changed by end users to accomodate his/her needs.

If possible consider putting you tables on a SQL back end. This will also help with reporting.

 

[skaas]

A better way would be to keep both the front end and back end on your providing server machine.

Create a drive map, remove any access to the directory containing the Back End.

Lock the back end.

Create a shared access to the directory containing the front end.

Now when users access and save the data, it will only modify the networked front / back end and will not create a duplicate locally on the user machines Hard Drive

One point - Never let the staff themselves map their own shared folders

This should be controlled by policies from the Exchange Server side

If you are using active directory - Consider changing the policies for the network and define policies for the users locally also.

And no - Locking the backend will not interfere with the data transfer, providing links to the front end are sound.

Also consider using the "Hide" function to hide the tables and create a password which is required if the user wishes to "Unhide" using the toolbars.

Hope that helps