ISO FileMaker Magazine

As with all increasingly complex human creations, especially those that go beyond the simple steps of “1, 2, 3, and done”, it’s important to plan for a solid foundation. A well-thought-out foundation guides a project toward long-term success and easier maintenance once the initial effort has been invested.

These early investments in your technical solution cover a variety of areas, one of the most important being permissions. Controlling what can be done, and by whom, not only protects against malicious intent from outside your organization but also helps prevent the inevitable accidental mishaps that occur internally.

This video begins laying the groundwork for implementing permissions properly when building FileMaker solutions. By setting a few initial configurations, we can encourage mindfulness about what happens as users navigate layouts and perform actions within the system. Following the process shown in the video allows us to be intentional about our permissions and to test them as we move forward along the development path.

Security. While it isn't as sexy as a nice UI widget or as crafty as a really cool scripted workflow, setting up your security is something you must consider before any database deployment. When it comes to security, you can't miss a beat. If you do, then that one attack vector might be the one that bites you. And, unless your FileMaker solution is never going to connect with the network at large, knowing who can do what within your system is an essential requirement of security.

Getting to know FileMaker's privilege sets, and how they work, is one thing. But, weaving this knowledge into a system which provides a good degree of flexibility is another. If you're interested in the User/Group/World permissions model, then applying it to your FileMaker solution isn't too hard. You just need know which fields to add and how to make them interact with the rest of the security model in order to accomplish your intended goal.

This video, and the companion file that comes with it, will provide you with the best starting point possible for figuring out how you might want to integrate your security objectives. If you've never quite gotten FileMaker's security under your belt, then give this video and file a good look over.