Hi,I have an issue that I am not sure has a resolution because I can’t find anything in this forum or on the internet. Let me begin by saying I am not the best Lotus Coder.
I have a database with FormA which has a readers field so that only the author and people in my readers field can see the document in all my views.
I am looking for any way that I can to allow either FormA (which I pretty much know I can’t) or a few of the fields on FormA (whether it be on a new form (FormB?)) or some other way in one of my views to be viewable by everyone regardless of the readers field on FormA.
I have tried making a computed text form but the view still uses FormA in the view selection so my documents still are invisible to all the users.
Is there a way that when FormA is submitted (Saved) it is linked to another Form but with different Access Rights?
Thank you in advance for any light you may be able to shed on this scenerio for me.
Subject: Allow Form with Readers field to be viewable to more than people listed in Readers field in one view
Reader fields belong to the doc, not the form. Once a doc is created with reader fields, you’re done until you update the reader list.
Forms are used to get data into documents and as a mechanism to display docs but the actual data lives as formless docs/records in the app. That prevents exactly the behavior you’re trying to do.
I don’t do a ton of stuff with that level of security but you should be able to restrict access to specific parts of a doc via things like controlled access sections which protect just that part of the doc based on reader/author restrictions.
You can also encrypt specific fields if you really need to get down to that level of control.
If you’re OK with duplicating data, you could do something like you were thinking and spin off a separate doc that doesn’t include reader fields. This would be a bad idea unless your app disallows all edits at the point you spin off the second/copy doc; keeping them in sync if edits are allowed would be a royal PITA.
Do you really need reader fields? What would happen if everyone could see everything? If the answer is ‘meh’, then skip the reader field thing and go with whatever form/view designs make sense for your users.
Subject: RE: Allow Form with Readers field to be viewable to more than people listed in Readers field in one view
Doug is entirely correct. I just want to amplify a few things.
Readernames fields are respected by every method of access. You cannot, for example, create a special form that uses formulas to look up the data only from certain fields. The only way past readernames field is either to be listed in the field or to have local/full access admin rights.
Doug mentioned controlled access sections as an alternative. I.e., remove the readernames fields (which required running an agent to remove the items from the docs, not merely removing the fields from the form) and add controlled access sections for the data that needs protection. The thing is, controlled access sections are only honored by the Notes client’s presentation of the form. The data is not protected from any other access, so a user can see the data simply by bringing up the Document Properties dialog, as well as by a variety of other methods. So if your purpose is merely to hide some data for appearances’ sake, controlled access sections are a good solution. If your purpose is to hide data for confidentiality’s sake, they are not.
I almost never use reader/author fields and didn’t fully understand the controlled access section bit.
Turns out, I also didn’t realize users had the option to use doc properties and set reader access on the fly. Holy crap…I had no clue. A ‘creative’ user could really cause problems. I have not had time to see if/how that feature could be limited but in my little bit of testing, it seems like any editor can set the reader list on any doc (when the app doesn’t use reader/author fields).