You can set up your databases so that individual users can only view and add leases that belong to a particular group. For instance, you might have a single database with all leases for your company, but permit users to see only leases that belong to their division. The group names must be stored in User- Defined Field #1; once you enable record limiting, entries for that field must be selected from a list, rather than being free-form text. (The list of permissible entries is entered on the UDF Choices tab of System Options.) If you have changed the title for User-Defined Field #1, the new title is displayed at the top of the window.
Enabling record limiting and setting up each user for their permitted groups is done by the owner of the account number groups database. Go to File / System Options, click on Account numbering, then click on the Record Limits button. (This button is not visible if you are not the owner/security administrator of the account number groups database.) Check the box labeled “Enable Record Limiting.” Enter the valid choices for the group (division, state, country, or whatever else is your controlling characteristic) on the UDF Choices tab of System Options.
To add a user to the record limits list, the user must first be authorized to use EZLease (as described in Authorizing Users earlier in this chapter). When you add a user for record limiting, initially all choices for User Defined Field #1 are valid (shown by a checked “All”). To limit access to one or several choices, select the appropriate choices in the list (which automatically unchecks “All”). Once record limiting is enabled, no user can run EZLease without an entry in this list.
When a user who is not authorized for All choices opens the database, only those leases that match the choices selected are displayed in EZLease. To that user, it looks as if those are the only leases in the database, except that they cannot enter a lease number that matches a hidden lease. An attempt to do so generates an error stating that the lease number is in use, but the user is not authorized to view it. Also, if a database has no leases matching that user’s authorized choices, but other leases are in the database, when the database is opened a message indicating this fact is displayed, and the user’s authorized choices are listed.
If you enable record limiting after entering data into a database, you may want to verify that all leases have valid entries in user-defined field #1. You can do this by running Help / Repair Database as a user that is authorized to view all records. Any records found with values that are not listed as available choices are displayed during the repair process; you must specify a valid choice.