Rights
Groups are used to provide or restrict access to databases, tables, fields and records.
Three levels of access can be provided:
Read = R
Write = W
Delete = D
Groups can have no Read, no Write nor Delete (000) access or R00, or RW0 or RWD access.
Read only (R00) access means that the users belonging to the group will not be able to modify the associated tables, fields or records.
RW0 groups can read and modify associated tables, fields or records they created but won't be able to modify the ones created by others.
RWD groups can read and perform any modification to the associated tables, fields or records.
As to be seen in Rights at Table, Fields and Records levels, access to the data can be limited and a high level of security can be established.
One needs to know that to access a database a user needs to be fully registered and an administrator or a super-administrator has to attribute the new user to an existing group.
It is the group that has, or not, access to the data; not the users directly. This means that access cannot be adapted at the user level but only at the group level.
As an example (see visual representation below), a group (G1) having RWD rights on Table A that contains 5 fields (F1, F2, F3, F4, F5) and containing 4 records (R1, R2, R3, R4).
If G1 has RWD rights on F1, F2 and F5 but no rights 000 on F3 and F4, then the latter two fields won't be visible at all for G1 even if it has RWD access on Table A.
If G1 has RWD rights on R1, R2 and R3 but no rights 000 on R4, then the latter record won't be visible at all for G1 even if it has RWD access on Table A and RWD access on fields F1, F2, F5.
It is always the least common factor that will decide access rights to records and fields of a given table.
Always keep access rights in minds as sometimes it might make access to records data a bit complex to understand. However, this system provides the greatest possible flexibility in terms of security.
Visual representation of the example provided in the text above. Table A, containing 5 fields and 4 records. For Group 1, cells colored in red are not accessible/visible while cells in green color are completely accessible.
This movie shows how rights are given in BioloMICS.
1. Overview database structure (0:09)
2. Backstage - Users (1:28)
3. Backstage – Groups ( 1:57)
4. Backstage - Tables (2:20)
5. Backstage - Fields (3:37)
6. Rights on Record (4:09)