Allowing others to link or access data files

[Larryg]

Hello;



To those of you who develop DB's for use by others... what are your thoughts on letting others have access to the back-end data files, be it linking to them, or actual access to edit the data? How do you handle the inevitable requests to have access to the data? Is there a way to grant Read-Only access to back-end data tables? I have provided functionality to produce what I call data-dumps, i.e. mass data dumped into an excel spreadsheet and placed in a shared drive with the click of a button, but still I get repeated requests for them to get in the tables and do whatever they think they know how to do. This is in spite of a slew of custom reports available to them, as well as the data-dump functionality. It's frustrating, and I just wondered how others handle this issue.

Thanks...

Larry

[ranman256]

EVERYONE I work for knows the value of NOT being able to get to the backend. Data integrity. As long as they get their data they are happy.
None of them have the knowledge to dig thru code or structures to get to the backend anyway. They don't want the responsibility.
So if someone wants in the backend to mess around then it's their company's funeral.

[Larryg]

EVERYONE I work for knows the value of NOT being able to get to the backend. Data integrity. As long as they get their data they are happy.
None of them have the knowledge to dig thru code or structures to get to the backend anyway. They don't want the responsibility.
So if someone wants in the backend to mess around then it's their company's funeral.

Thank you for your thoughts. I guess the issue for me, the developer of the DB(s)... if/when the data becomes unreliable due to inadvertent or inexperienced tampering... they are going to look me for the responsibility to resolve, then they will be looking for a scapegoat. It's difficult to explain the importance of data integrity to those who have no concept of such, and are those who your boss answers to. I struggle with this daily. It's not that I don't want them to have the data, and in fact as I stated I provide such to them in several forms, including raw data dumps.

It's good to hear how others handle this situation, as I'm sure in plays out everyday in corporate America. Again, thank you for your thoughts.

Larry

[Homegrownandy]

You need to address the issue of why they want to. Ask them why they need to have the access and what they would use it for. Provide them with the functionality to do what they want in forms (providing its reasonable). I want the users here to do all of the data entry and manipulation. But not at the expense of security.