Re: Database Design Recommendations

Eric, Your second approach is fine. It's denormalized, extensible, and can be manipulated using tools you put in place. You may want to consider "groups" as well, thus people belonging to a group could view/edit pages, that has the potential to save a lot of administrative scut work. A table of permissions will also be required so that the various codes used for differing levels of permission are consistent. Suggest that when a user logs in the appropriate permission levels etc. should be fetched and stored in a session to save on some trips to the server. This session data, creatively used, could mean that only the files/pages that user is authorized for will be displayed. Miles At 06:36 PM 11/1/2004, Eric Cranley wrote:

I tried to find this in the archives. If I missed it, my apologies in advance. I'm developing an intranet for my company, and we are planning on putting sensitive information on it. I've already setup a login system using sessions, but I'm not sure how to manage and store permissions, such as who can view commissions, reset user passwords, etc. I've devised two methods, but I have a feeling there's a better way to do this that I'm not thinking of. I'll be storing these permissions in a MySQL database. My first idea was a single field with the SET datatype. This allows for a user to have multiple permissions, but makes it hard for other employees to add permissions later, if they decide to restrict a previously open access page. (I should mention that I'm the only person here who knows how to adjust a table in MySQL, and I won't be around forever.) My other idea solved the previously mentioned problem. I could create a second table with employee permissions. It would have two fields, employee_id and permission. Every employee would have one row for every permission they had. I could also create a third table of page names and required permission to view it, so if someone later decides that only certain people should view a page, they can change it without coming to me. What do people think of these ideas, and is there a better way to do this? Thanks in advance. Eric Cranley IT Specialist Willis Music Company -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php