Summary

Well then, in this chapter we have looked at the many problems that can arise when more than one person wants to use a database at the same time. In fact they aren't so much problems, as issues. They only become problems when you ignore or forget about them.

The key to producing an Access database that will function as happily with ten people using it as with one, is to plan ahead. If you bear in mind the issues we have looked at in this chapter, and apply them to your databases from the moment you start building them, you should have very few problems. On the other hand, if you wait until the last moment to add a veneer of multi-usability on top of your database, you will spend some very long days and nights trying to iron out problems which wouldn't have arisen if you had been a little more far-sighted in the beginning!

This chapter has covered:

• The difference between page-level and row-level locking

• The difference between optimistic and pessimistic locking

• How to apply locking

• The locking errors you are likely to encounter and how to deal with them

• How to use the user and group objects to secure a database

• How to set and change passwords

• Compiling projects

• Creating and using MDE files

• Encrypting databases

That was quite a lot of ground we covered there! Obviously some of these subjects could fill whole chapters in their own right so we could only really scratch the surface here but you should have enough to make a good start.