Anthony said:
As part of an Access Database a form is created that must be signed by the
engineering dept and sent back to the QA dept. Engineering dept wants to
be
able to have the form emailed, digitally sign the form, and return the
form
via email to the Qa dept. I do not want to allow anyone to sign the form,
so
I must secure the form to allow only a select group to access the field
that
the signature will appear in. Does this make more sense?
Thank You
Anthony
Anthony,
So, you want to ensure that the document and/or its signature has not been
altered or forged. I think your true problem is the validation of the
"acceptance" of the form (authorization) sent by engineering. You can solve
this problem by either exchanging the forms digitally-signed by email, or by
using a record-update based on user security rights.
"ACCEPTANCE" BASED ON DOCUMENT EXCHANGING
It is outside Access to "digitally sign" an Access-generated document. You
need to consider to sign the document itself directly as file, or sign its
transportation (email). This is has no much to do with Access, since you
will need to work at the level of your email program with an electronic
message-signing process. Electronically signing a document or email implies
the use of digital certificate with a public key to digital data. And it
ensures that the data being signed is the same as the one in the possession
of the person signing it.
This is not to be confused with Microsoft Authenticode technology for Office
2000 that allows developers to digitally sign "code" or VBA projects within
their documents, templates, and add-ins by using a digital certificate that
identifies the developer as a trusted source. You can digitally sign the VBA
projects in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook solutions. When opening
them Microsoft Office applications can verify a digital signature to
identify them as your work and to determine if the signed VBA project has
been altered in any way.
A digital ID serves as an electronic substitute for sealed envelopes and
handwritten signatures. You can have your own Digital ID for secure email
and install it in your Web browser or email software. This enable you to: 1)
Digitally sign email messages to assure recipients that the email really was
sent by you. 2) Encrypt email contents and attachments, protecting them from
being read by online intruders. Only your intended recipient can decrypt
them. VeriSign is a leading authority and they can issue Digital IDs for
about $20. They are valid for one year. There is also a 60-day trial. Check:
http://www.verisign.com/products-se...lication/email-digital-id/page_dev004002.html.
You can also get digital IDs from these other authorities:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010547821033.aspx
PGP Mail is a software that combines 128-bit encryption and digital
signatures for secure email, attachments, and instant messages. It ensures
that a message cannot be read by anyone other than the intended recipient
(encryption). Digital signatures provide verification of the creator's
identity and that the message was not tampered with during transit. PGP Mail
can be configured to automatically encrypt messages when the Send button is
clicked. Check:
http://www.pgp.com/index.html
You can take a look at Articsoft's FormsAssurity software, which encrypts
and digital sign web based forms and attachments.
http://www.articsoft.com/encryption_products.htm
Also VeriSign has a software called VeriSign Document Signer, which is a
Plug-in for Adobe Acrobat, that enables you to digitally sign Acrobat PDF
documents using a VeriSign Digital ID. Check:
http://www.verisign.com/products-se...ces/pki/pki-application/trusted-form-signing/
"ACCEPTANCE" BASED ON USER SECURITY RIGHTS
OK so you have a database on a network, with interactions from different
users: QA department, Engineering, Accounting, etc. You could have a field
for a signature, but you cannot set security access on specific fields,
unless you are developing a client/server side custom solution. Otherwise
you are left with the option of working-around the issue with the MS Access'
object security model.
So to work-around it create a table for every "acceptance" required to
authorize the document or transaction. For instance, if the form is called
"New Job 4444", you will look to have it signed or "accepted" by Engineering
and QA. So it will be a table called "Jobs" (which will have all the jobs
with a unique ID), another table called "Authorizations(Engineering)" (with
two fields: the signature or name of the engineer, and a Job ID that the
acceptance is related to), another authorization table for QA, and then
setting-up security on those tables to "read" (for everybody) and "write" to
Engineers and QA for their respective tables. Then use inner joins between
theses 3 tables and have it as a record source in your Access form objects.
No signatures, no additional paperwork, and best of all, a real-time
progress-status of a job.
To read Microsoft's solution on using field/column-level security, in
Microsoft Access, please read:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=304315
To learn to protect an Access database and its objects with user-level
security please read:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP052578501033.aspx
-Randy
