User manual

Table Of Contents
Chapter 6 | Protecting databases 134
Suggestions for creating secure passwords
1 Secure passwords are typically eight or more characters in length, and include at least one
numeric character.
1 If the file is shared via web publishing, account names and passwords can only use characters
included in the ISO Latin-1 character set (except colons). To avoid characters that may be
interpreted incorrectly over the web, you may want to limit account names and passwords to
alphabetic and numeric characters only.
For more information about protecting FileMaker Pro databases, see Help.
Creating accounts and privilege sets
Accounts specify account names and (usually) passwords for a file. When a user opens a file that
contains accounts, a dialog box prompts the user to enter account information. When a user opens
a file with a correct account name and password, the privilege set assigned to that account
determines what the user can do in that file.
Privilege sets specify levels of access to a database, such as which layouts are viewable, which
menus are available, and whether printing is permitted.
To create and manage accounts and privilege sets for a file, you need to open the file with an
account that is assigned the Full Access privilege set.
You can create and modify accounts and privilege sets in a shared file while clients are using it.
The account changes you make take effect immediately. However, the changes do not disrupt any
current clients. For example, if you change the password for an account that is in use by one or
more clients, their FileMaker
Pro usage is not interrupted. However, they will need to enter the new
password the next time they open the file.
You can create as many accounts as you need. You can create individual accounts for each user,
or a smaller number of accounts that users can share.
Viewing accounts and privilege sets
The Manage Security dialog box displays a list of all the accounts and privilege sets for a file.
To view the accounts and privilege sets for a file:
1. Open the database file.