Authenticating users for password protected cells

  • Thread starter Thread starter Confused
  • Start date Start date
C

Confused

Does anyone know how to go about having a user
authenticated before being allowed to update a password
protected range of cells on a locked worksheet? I have
multiple people using a shared worksheet, and want to
keep the from changing another person's information. The
ranges are defined, passwords assigned, permissions set
up with their email addresses. However, any person with
the correct password can unlock the range and change
information. Any thoughts? Thanks!
 
Does anyone know how to go about having a user
authenticated before being allowed to update a password
protected range of cells on a locked worksheet? I have
multiple people using a shared worksheet, and want to
keep the from changing another person's information. The
ranges are defined, passwords assigned, permissions set
up with their email addresses. However, any person with
the correct password can unlock the range and change
information. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Presumably all these users are on the same network and must log in to access
shared files stored on network servers. If so, you could use a Windows API call
wrapped in a VBA function to get their network login names and automatically
unprotect the cells to which they should have modify access without even having
to ask them for passwords.

Search Google Groups archives for fOSUserName.

This would not prevent people altering cells they shouldn't if they could log in
using another user's login name, but that's not something applications should
handle/resolve. That's a basic security issue, and should be dealt with by the
network OS and personnel policies.
 
Hi Confused!

Your best bet here will be to limit any particular user to changing
information on one sheet allocated to them and perhaps then using that
information elsewhere. Different passwords can be applied to different
sheets and you thus have some protection against unauthorized changes.

However, internal password protection in Excel is not particularly
secure and there are freely available workbooks and code that can be
used to remove all internal passwords from a workbook. At best, the
internal password protection is a means of preventing accidental
changes.

--
Regards
Norman Harker MVP (Excel)
Sydney, Australia
(e-mail address removed)
Excel and Word Function Lists (Classifications, Syntax and Arguments)
available free to good homes.
 
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