Fine-tuning database access permissions

By default, when a database is accessed from a form, any changes can be made to it: records can be added, deleted and amended. You may not want that behaviour. For example, you may want users to be able only to add new records or to be prohibited from deleting existing records.

In design mode, right-click on a form control and select Form from the pop-up menu. On the Data tab of the Form Properties dialog box are a number of options: Allow additions, Allow deletions, Allow modifications and Add data only. Set each of these to Yes or No to control the access users have to the data source.

Individual fields can also be protected. This might be useful if you wanted a user to be able to modify some parts of a record but only view others, such as a stock list where item descriptions are fixed and quantities can be modified.

To make an individual field read-only, in design mode, right-click on the form control within the document and select Controlfrom the pop-up menu. Select the General tab and set Read-only to Yes.