Hi Folks,
I have several issues I need to figure out. I finally talked
my Fire Department to purchase Filemaker Server 7 and client licenses after
eight years of trying and now I have the City’s IT department hating it
and awaiting my failure. The fire department now wants me to design multiple
databases to be deployed on their server (Win 2000) which is accessed on a LAN and
WAN using W2000P and XPpro clients. Previously, I have designed and deployed
single use/function databases on several server systems. Now, I am faced with
multiple databases and about 200 users (employees) that will need to access
from 1 to multiple databases with varying degrees of access levels.
Examples of possible solutions: Training Records, Fire
Inspection Records, Overtime Selection, Scheduling, Patient Care Reporting,
Fire Incident Reporting, Employee Records, Payroll, Leave scheduling and so on…
Each one of the potential databases/solutions will use an
employee name and ID, and each solution might need to only allow select employees
to access the solution, and some solutions will need to allow all to access to
varying degrees.
My question/s:
1.) Would I be better off designing one database containing
Employee Name and ID numbers and then have the other databases link to the Employee
database by external file references? Or should I maintain a table in each one
the solutions that contains employee data, which will be a nightmare to keep
current?
2.) Issue of Passwords and Groups: Is there any way of
getting around having to set up user names, groups and passwords in each
solution/database?
3.) Each client will have an opener file, Should I have the
opener file open to a layout (local database) with Icon buttons for each hosted/served
database or is there a better way of doing this?
I know that many of you have faced these issues and I am interested
on how you addressed solved these and many others I probably have not thought
of yet. Any guidance is appreciated and if anyone knows of any available samples
please send me a link.
Thanks,
Mike
