Security .. Login

[Jarrett Nahon]

Is it possible to create another table of just usernames, passwords and security level.

Ex:
Name Password SecLevel
Jarrett 12345 3

Sec. Levels could be like 1 , 2 ,3 For Denied , View , Edit

If Someone has any Idea's or maybe a place for me to look towards using some Xbasic Scripts b/c or is there a better help then the PDF Files?

Thank you for all the Help!! Tabs are comming along nice.

[Thomas Henkel]

RE: Security .. Login

I have an entire system build around our security table. We have over 250 users, with a different levels of "authority". With a lot of help from Selwyn, we are able to trace each user's movements throughout the multi-database system. Our main Menu is attached to this security table, and based on the user's level of access, we direct the user to appropriate forms and menus throughout the system.

Our table is fairly straightforward.

User-ID 5 char
access code 5 numeric
Name 30 char
Password 6 char
active flag 1 char
password date date
security level 1 char

Users must enter the system via an x-basic dialog box theat takes and verifies their user-id and password. It then determines if the password needs to be changed (every 3 months) and if the user is already on (active flag). Once everything is alright, the main menu is displayed. The user's access code and security level are stored in an addin.variable space so they can be viewed and checked in other databases that I call. The user's access code is stamped onto any record that they change. This way we can trace who last modified a record in a table.

There is quite a bit more, but I really don't want to write a book. This security table system has enough flexibility that it should be adaptable to any application developed.

Tom

[Cheryl Lemire]

RE: Security .. Login

Hi Tom,

Sounds like you have done a lot of work with security and logins. We currently have a user table, a company table, and an access level table. My boss and I have been brainstorming on the best way to tie the three of these together so that when we input a new user we are able to tie them to specific companies and various levels for the different companies. One thing that we had thought of was to create a fourth table that would be written to which would have the records of all possible access levels for one individual.

Example:

Cheryl has access to Co A at level 1
Cheryl has access to Co A at level 2
Cheryl has access to Co B at level 1
Cheryl has access to Co B at level 3
Cheryl has access to Co C at level 4

We believe this method would work best for us at this time, but since I am very new to AlphaFive, I am not sure of the best way to design this. My first thought is that I would enter the new user into the user table, then I would have a form where I would look up the user and select from the company table all the companies that they would have access to. At the same time of selecting the company I want to be able to select the access level for that company as well.

I guess this is similar to placing an order somewhere, I want 3 shirts, 1 in blue, 2 in red, the blue one a size small, 1 red one a large, and the 2nd red one a medium.

I believe I have the tables set up the way that I need to, but I am not sure where to go from here in order to implement this. I also do not know the code in Alpha and am slowly learning my way through that.

Thanks
Cheryl

[Keith Hubert]

RE: Security .. Login

Cheryl,

I am no expert in security but from what you are describing you are making a lot of hard work for your self. Working with Alpha the KISS principle gets the best results. How about this? Company "A" has a security level of "AA" now only the staff who have the same security Level can view that company. Now all you need to change is one field in the staff record to change their status as to which companies records they can have view.

There is going to be some good planning needed to make sure who is allowed to see what. But it can all be done with Alpha. Start off simple with a form for someone to log on to with another form that will only open if the status allows it. For example you could have a conditional field with a button to open the company form that is only visable if that employee had the correct status.

Hope that has given you lots to play around with.

Keith Hubert
London.

[Cheryl Lemire]

RE: Security .. Login

Thanks Keith. At the moment I have resolved most of the issues already. One of the biggest issues with your suggestion is that we already have 7 different access levels for each of the 5 companies. Just because somebody has access to a specific company does not give them access to all that is available for that company.

We have resolved the issue with tieing the security access levels to each of the various companies with the help of Tom earlier. We did this by linking the access
security table to the company table by level. It is crucial that our initial design is flexible enough and allows for expansion without minimal changes throughout as there will be more companies and more access levels added once it has been developed and functioning flawlessly.

What I am working on now is the syntax so that at login various circumstances are met, and then the user will be directed to a specific page based on the circumstances that they met. The next phase after that is to have the page they are directed to automatically generated based on their criteria.

I am doing these things with the web application server so not all is as easy as it is within AlphaFive itself. We are creating as much as possible within AlphaFive first so that we can minimize the code needed for the web application server.

I will keep all posted as we progress.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.
Cheryl