Account Manager 2.0 Manage Unlimited FileMaker Servers, Databases, Privileges, and Users Effortlessly! The ultimate tool for FileMaker Database Administrators.
Welcome To Account Manager 2.0 What Is Account Manager? What s New in Account Manager 2.0 Account Manager 2.0 Features Why use Account Manager? Registering Account Manager Installing Account Manager on FileMaker Server Account Manager Preferences Main Navigation Areas Managing Servers, Databases, and Privileges Managing Users Managing Privileges Notifications Integrating Account Manager Upgrade Activation (to extend number of users) Reports Frequently Asked Questions Licensing Information Thank You What Is Account Manager? Account Manager is a FileMaker Pro solution that allows administrators to manage user access to other FileMaker Pro files. It provides one, central, easy-to-use interface for granting access to other files, disabling access in other files, changing privilege sets, changing passwords, sending notifications to users, and more!
What s New in Account Manager 2.0 Account Manager 2.0 has been redesigned from the ground up! Plug-ins are no longer required, and notifications are now available for all users, and can be targeted by server, database, and access level. Now Account Manager can validate passwords based on 4 different criteria: lowercase characters, uppercase characters, numeric characters, and special characters. Logging has been enhanced for notification tracking, password changes, and database accesses. You won t need to wrangle Active Directory or Open Directory, because Account Manager gives you the control you need. Account Manager is the only tool out there that provides you with centralized Account Management. If your IT team is unwilling to support FileMaker, use Account Manager to manage permissions and grant access. Account Manager has been installed in a number of Fortune 500 companies, with excellent results. Account Manger is now a single file. You can manage up to 7 users for free! Purchase a license to manage more users, or to manage unlimited users and gain under-the-hood access. Account Manager also carries the seal of quality Inspected by Inspector. To find out more about Inspector, the developer tool for FileMaker Professionals, visit the FMNexus web site: http://fmnexus.com
Account Manager 2.0 Features Enjoy the Simplicity No more reliance on plug-ins - easier to install in larger organizations Manage unlimited servers, databases, privileges, and users Easy database integration (duplicate and modify scripts) Intuitive and easy-to-use interface Visual indicators for warnings such as invalid emails or already existing accounts Single file architecture tighter security and ability to rename the file Sample file showing how to capture account credentials of logged-in user Disable servers Disable databases Manage Accounts Set accounts to expire automatically on a particular date Progress dialog when deleting accounts Disable accounts Create an access log for each database entry Manage Privileges Multiple privilege sets for individual users without creating multiple accounts Reassign privilege sets for groups of accounts Disable privilege sets Disable all privileges associated with databases on specific servers Disable all privileges associated with a specific database Manage Passwords Force password change upon login Force password change every X days Validate password length to a minimum number of characters Validate password for lowercase, uppercase, numeric, and special characters Reset account password Notify account holder of password reset via email Test login process for selected account (simulation mode) Display Messages to Users Upon login By server (automatically or manually dismissed) By database (automatically or manually dismissed) By privilege set (automatically or manually dismissed) Send Email Notifications to Users (including new account information) To all users By server By database By privilege set Notification mail merge Create Reports Accounts assigned to a privilege set (sub-summarized by server and database) Privilege sets by database (sub-summarized by server) All accounts managed by Account Manager Access log report (sub-summarized by account) User access rights (sub-summarized by account)
Privilege Log (new in 2.0) Account Manager 1.5 reports enhanced reports in version 2.0 Import / Export Progress dialog when importing accounts Bulk account creation via import Account holder notification by email (upon import) Complete export for future version updates Advanced Customization Master Access password provided with purchase of unlimited user license Why Use Account Manager With the release of FileMaker 7, a much higher plateau of what is possible has been reached. Many people will want to migrate their FileMaker 6 and earlier solutions. FileMaker 7 brings a new dimension to the world of the FileMaker developer, integrating multiple tables in a single file. To take advantage of this new capability, one must start fresh or consolidate what they have converted from the previous version of FileMaker. If you have converted your solution, let s say a moderately complex solution of 20 files, you are now faced with the overwhelming task of managing and maintaining accounts for each of the tables. This is one of example of how Account Manager can help. Let s say you work at a company with 50 employees, 40 of whom need access to your database(s). If your company does not have a centralized authentication server, or has a mixed platform environment, you ll need to create and maintain each user account in each FileMaker database that you have converted. Here s a diagram of what this might look like: We see that the database has a certain number of accounts, each of which is assigned to a single privilege. If a user should no longer have access, you d need to disable or remove that account in each database. If a user has forgotten his or her password, you d have to reset it in each database, and inform the user of the changes. Of course, most of this can be automated with scripts- you could build your own solution for these kinds of problems, or you could use Account Manager, a tool designed for and fully dedicated to this task.
We see that the database has a certain number of accounts, each of which is assigned to a single privilege. If a user should no longer have access, you d need to disable or remove that account in each database. If a user has forgotten his or her password, you d have to reset it in each database, and inform the user of the changes. Of course, most of this can be automated with scripts- you could build your own solution for these kinds of problems, or you could use Account Manager, a tool designed for and fully dedicated to this task. These chores basically keep you, the database administrator, very busy, and distract you from other work. Perhaps you are the only person maintaining databases at your company and your time is very valuable. Account Manager will help you organize and use time efficiently, by centralizing all the account management in one database. Account Manager can track unlimited databases hosted on any number of FileMaker servers. Each database can have an unlimited number of privileges sets, which are in turn assigned to specific users. Here s what your security might look like after it has been modified to use Account Manager: Now, instead of having many accounts for each user, you have one account for each privilege set. Now you can focus on each privilege set and make sure that the actions that each person needs to perform are permitted. But where did all the users go? Account Manager manages them now. When a user wants to open a database, they first log into Account Manager, authenticate themselves, and are then given the ability to log into any of the systems the database administrator has granted them access to. They have an actual account in the Account Manager database, much like they would in your database, but there are many additional benefits. You can flash a message about when a sever might be down. You can flash users a message when they log into a particular database to notify them of recent changes. You can have an account automatically expire when a certain date is reached. You can temporarily disable accounts, databases and servers. You can also require that passwords be of a certain length, with combinations of lowercase characters, uppercase characters,
numeric characters, or special characters. But the greatest benefit is the efficiency of managing all this information in one place, and if you purchase an unlimited user license for Account Manager, you will gain master-level access to extend this solution in any way you choose. If you purchase a site license, you can deploy Account Manager throughout your organization for as many groups as you wish. It might be an unfair comparison to use a chart to compare what Account Manager and a typical FileMaker database can offer. They both manage accounts in much the same way. The benefit of using Account Manager is that accounts management is centralized, allowing you to stay focused on building your databases and maintaining your privileges. Let s take a look at an overview diagram of Account Manager. In the diagram below, the user doesn t need to know where the server is, so they might log into the regular database server, and be routed to another server. Account Manager is also great for sandbox testing, where you need to test changes to your database before rolling them into your production version.
Registering Account Manager Account Manager requires an activation code, even for the free 7-user license copy of it. So the first time you launch it you ll be prompted to enter an activation code. Once you have entered your name and activation code you ll then be asked to create an account with which to log into Account Manager. Enter an account name and password that you will NOT FORGET!
Installing Account Manager on FileMaker Server Setting up Account Manager to be hosted from your FileMaker Server is much like hosting any other FileMaker database. Set up file permissions so that FileMaker server can host it. Install the included sample databases if you wish to use them for testing. Because the file references to the sample databases are relative, install them in the same location relative to Account Manager. If at the root level of your FileMaker Databases folder you have created a folder for Account Manager, just copy the entire am sample databases folder into the Databases folder and make sure the sample files also have correct file permissions. Refer to your FileMaker Server guide for more information on how to set up your files for proper access from FileMaker Sever. If you have followed the instructions and registered your copy, you have database admin privileges when you are logged in under that privilege. Go ahead and create some additional users and experiment with them logging in. Account Manager Preferences Account Manager preferences can be viewed by choosing preferences from the Scripts menu. The preferences include the ability to force a change of password every X number of days, and stipulating a password pattern, including a minimum number of characters, and combinations of lowercase, uppercase, numeric, and special characters.
You can also configure Account Manager to automatically log the user into a solution if only one privilege is assigned to them. When testing an account holder s login, you can choose to open the database or simply stipulate to open the database on login. You can export all the data in Account Manager for backup, or for upgrading when an update is available. You can also reset all the data in Account Manager and start over. Useful if you are just going to experiment with it before you actually set it up. (Note: doing this will also remove all the sample data.) Main Navigation Areas There are 4 main areas in Account Manager. At any point you can hover over a button and a tooltip will also provide you with relevant information. We ll go into a detailed view of each area later on. The 4 main navigation areas are: 1) Manage Servers, Databases, and Privileges In this area you define all the servers, databases, and privileges that Account Manager will be managing. 2) Manage Users The send icon from the left is where you can create and modify users access to different systems. You can also import a set of users and generate reports for each user. 3) Assigning Privileges This area allows you to assign privileges to or remove privileges from each user. 4) Notifications New feature in Account Manager 2.0 - send notifications to all users, or users who have access to a particular server, database, or privilege.
Managing Servers, Databases, & Privileges The very first thing you ll want to do with Account Manger is create your server record. Make certain you are on the first tab Manage Servers: and click on the to create a new server record and fill out the server name and IP address. Once you have created the server record you are ready to create both the database record and the privileges associated with that database record. Follow the same steps to create both the database record and the privilege record. When creating the privilege record, Account Manager will create an account for the privilege. When a user logs in they select the privilege they wish to log in with and Account Manager performs a proxy login. The logged-in account name is passed over to the other file via script parameters. See example file AM Sample.fp7.
For any item (server, database, or privilege), you can assign a message and a pause duration. The database administrator enters a message and duration for the message visibility. Let s say you wanted to notify all users about some scheduled server update. You can have this message display every time a user logs in. Note: User can also dismiss the message if they have already read it by hitting the enter key. This is what the user would see when they are in the process of logging into a solution. Lets take a close look at what is needed to create the privilege in Account Manager.
1) If you already have account names in your solution and want to implement Account Manager, simply deactivate all your current user accounts (this way, if you want to go back to using all your accounts, you can simply reactivate them). 2) For each privilege set, create an account that will be associated with that privilege. For example, in the above file we had 3 privileges- Manager, Sales, and Support. A suggestion is to use naming conventions for the account names - that way, if another file also has a manager privilege, you won t have a duplicate account name. In the example below, we have named an account with a naming convention: <db> to represent that it is a database account, <cs> which is an abbreviation for the file Company Sales, and the name of the associated privilege. Note: if you have a multiple file solution, you need to create the same account name and password across all your files.
3) Now create the privilege in Account Manager (Note: if your database is already open you won t be asked for a password). 4) In your file, create a script that will be triggered when the file is open. This script will capture the credentials for the logged in Account Manager user. Account Manager sends over the following 4 parameters: $$_Account_Name & " " & $$_User_Name & " " & $$_Privilege_Set & " " & "Account Manager" See the example files that ship with Account Manager. 5) Open up ScriptMaker and duplicate the script titled. Open helper open db - template. Modify the Perform Script step- simply point it to your file through the file reference you have already created and select the On Open script we previously created. Again refer to the example files as to how to capture the credentials that were passed by Account Manager. 6) Each privilege that Account Manager tracks is associated with a unique identifier. The unique identifier in the privilege section as shown below. Copy the unique identifier.
7) Open the script. open helper - check privilege identifier. Duplicate the last Else if statement along with the perform script step, and modify both these steps as shown below. In this case you ll have the following if statement calculation. FO PRIVILEGE::identifier = "vsxk3vaz8" 8) Enter the unique identifier value in quotation marks and modify the perform script step to point to the startup script in your file. Close ScriptMaker to save all your changes. 9) You are now ready to begin assigning this privilege to users.
Managing Users At the heart of Account Manager are the users. This second tab is where you control all aspects of your users - their privileges and the access log. From this view, you can import and export a list of users, deactivate a user s accounts (they can no longer log into Account Manager and thus can no longer log into any other system managed by Account Manager), and reset user passwords. You can assign a message to appear when a user logs into a particular server or solution. Enter a message and a duration in the area provided. Click the to simulate the user login experience. Note: In the preferences you can control whether simulation also opens the database or simply provides visual feedback that the database would be opened at that time.
Click to import users from a file, and click the to export all the users. To create a new user click on the and you ll be presented with the New Account window. You can enter users one at a time, or you can import a whole set by clicking the Import button in the toolbar next to the filter. When you are ready to create the account, you can also choose to notify the user that their account has been created and is ready for use. NOTE: Emails are sent using your default email client. You can also create accounts that expire on a particular date, for those who need only temporary access. Managing Privileges Once you have entered servers, databases, privileges, and users, you are ready to begin assigning users to privileges. The Managing Privileges view is where all of this takes place. Along the left side select your server, then database, and then the privilege set you wish to assign to your user. Choose the user from the list by clicking on the portal row. You can also filter the portal by typing in the name of the user and hitting enter. To assign the user to the selected privilege, simply click on the blue arrow users portal. This will add that privilege for the selected user. at the top of the Click the to simulate the user login experience. Note: In the preferences you can control if the simulation also opens the database or simply provides visual feedback that the database would be opened at that time. To remove a privilege click on the to remove the associated privilege for the user. See the Privileges view below and its associated parts.
Notifications One of the cool new things in Account Manager 2.0 is the ability to send notifications to your users. You can notify all users who have been granted access to a particular server of some future downtime, or only to those who have access to a particular database or privilege notifying them of some new features, enhancements, or bug fixes. Notifications are a great way to keep your users informed and maximize productivity. Type up your message and personalize it with any one of the following merge fields: <First Name>, <Last Name>, <Account Name>, <Account Expiry>, <Current Date>, <Current Time>, <Server Name>, <Database Name>, <Privilege Name>
While notifications are being sent a progress dialog is presented to keep you informed. When notifications are sent they are also logged in the users log for future reference. Note: messages are sent via your email client application. If you purchase the unlocked version of Account Manager you can further customize this feature.
Integrating Account Manager One of the most important things you ll want to make sure you have is the ability to continue to capture the credentials of the person who logged in. Normally a database will have a set of fields to show when a record was created and modified, who created it and who modified it. (Some people also like to store the user name. However, user name is tied to the machine name, so if a user were to walk up to someone else s computer and log in they would then show up with a user name that did not belong to them, even though they used their account name and password to log into the solution.) Account Manager takes all of this a step further. First off, we ve already seen how Account Manager sends the credentials to your file via a script parameter. You have total control on where you decide to store these values for use in auto enter calculations and modification calculations. In our example files we choose to store them in memory variables for easy access, but you can also choose to store them in global fields. The created and modified timestamp fields are still there - nothing different here. What is different is that the auto-enter calculation values come from memory variables that were set when we captured the values we received from Account Manager on launch. Nothing special about the fields: created_account_name, created_user_name, and created_privilege_name - except that we don t want the auto-entered value to be replaced, so we check the Do not replace existing value of field (if any) option.
The modification fields need to reference a field, to know that the field has been triggered to look up the value. For example, let s say you wanted to know the user name of the person who just modified this record. The following calculation would provide this, assuming that you have stored the User Name in the memory variable: If ( modifed; $$_User_Name ) (Note: the image on the left is the created by user name and the one on the right is the modified by user name. For the modified field we want to uncheck the Do not replace existing value of field (if any) option.) We feel we have come up with a way that can accommodate both situations - when using Account Manger and when not. Look at the example files, as they already have these calculations in place and you can see that when a file is opened, you can continue to use the credentials as you had them before you used Account Manager. Upgrade Activation (to extend number of users) From the scripts menu select Upgrade License and when presented with the dialog to enter the new activation code enter it and click Activate. Reports Account Manager has a number of different reports, accessible from anywhere you see this icon:. Account Manger can generate a report for the related information. All report icons also have a tooltip associated providing you additional information about that report. Reports included are: Privilege Report Privilege Users Report Users Report Users Privilege Report User Access Log Report Privilege Access Log Report
Frequently Asked Questions How secure is Account Manager? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have taken great care to ensure security. If you are concerned and want an added level of security you can also have your FileMaker Serve host the databases with encryption turned on. Do I need to create a privilege for every database in a converted solution? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- No. Account Manager assumes you will be logging into one file and that one file will then in turn open up all relevant and related files. Everything is set up correctly but when a user logs in the database does not open? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the on open script make certain that you have a Select Window [Current Window] step. This will make certain that the window will come to the foreground. Do I need to install any plug-ins for use with Account Manager 2.0? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- No plug-ins are needed to use Account Manager 2.0. Once you have downloaded Account Manager and entered your complimentary 7-user free license you are able to user Account Manager. If I already have account names and passwords in my file do I need to delete them? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, you can simply make them inactive, create new accounts and associate each account with a privilege so you end up with as many active accounts as there are privileges. Then use those accounts with Account Manager. This way if you ever want to go back, all you need to do is reactivate the accounts of your users. Are there any additional training materials available? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, there are movie tutorials available for Account Manager. Visit the web site for the latest tutorials and training.
Licensing Information For details, please see the Account Manager licensing agreement. Thank you for your interest and support Although I have taken great care to make the product bug-free and hack-proof, there are always things that can be improved upon. Please let me know if something is not working the way you would expect. I take great pride in my work, and am always very happy to hear from you. I would like to thank you very much for your continued support and for the encouragement many of you have provided over the years. Send ME any bugs you find and feature requests. Spread the word about Account Manager - I would be very grateful. And of course thank you for your interest and support so that I can continue to build other great tools and solutions. I always love hearing from users so drop me a line if you feel inspired to write. This product is dedicated to my father who taught me some valuable life lessons. Sales and fulfillment provided by: The beezwax datatools team wow it is done! Account Manager 2.0 by: Vincenzo P. Menanno 2007 FMNEXUS all rights reserved.