Controlling Access in Labview

[Rick B.]

We run Labview 6i on our ATE with W2K.

We would like to control the level of access to the various set up as
such:

Level 1: Full access to all functions
Level 2: Technicians' access to most functions and some particular
vi's for troubleshooting purposes
Level 3: Tester access-simple access to the test module so as to run
the test only. No ability to change things.

I realize I can password protect the vi's, but I was hoping to frame
this in a more "global" set up.

I believe I can also control some access in W2K, but this seems
limited as well.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.



---
Rick Barry
Manufacturing & Test Engineering
Warner Power LLc

[Labviewguru]

Rick,

It's probably expensive for just the feature, but I'll mention it anyway. The LabVIEW DSC module comes with this exact security setup. You can implement this on your test stations with ease.

Trying to recreate this security on your own may actually be more expensive. You have to implement it on top of all of your functions. Buying the DSC module may be the way to go, depending on your situation. Get in touch with your local NI Sales Rep and have them demo the DSC module for you. You may find other aspects of the DSC helpful as well.

Another suggestion would be to incorporate your security with Windows. You can read the login through the registry VIs (hkey>>Current User>>???) and implement your security that way if you like. The DSC modul
e has its own complete security system, including limitations for different classes. Of course, this security is on top of (or in addition to) the Windows 2000 login security (such as it is.)

[Dennis_Knutson]

While the DSC may have some of the features, it's primarily for industrial control/automation. A better choice if you're looking to buy is TestStand. It's a general purpose test executive with 4 levels of security built in - administrator, developer, technician, and operator. If you have your own test executive, these features can be added but the difficulty will depend on the architecture of the program. You'll have to start with a login program and a means to assign certain privileges to different users and encrypting the whole thing so that you have some measure of security. If you can use the windows login and get this type of information, use that. Then, based on who's logged in, you could disable certain controls, pull down menus, tabs, or wha
tever. I was faced with the same situation a couple of years ago and decided that the effort required in modifiying a home grown test exec was not worth the effort and bought TestStand. Now I can concentrate on writing test programs and not user interfaces, data logging, and report generation.