"Ed" wrote in message
ups.com...
We have about 35+ people who need to enter individual information in a
master spreadsheet. Admin wants the individuals to see only their own
info, but Admin needs to be able to see everything. After presenting
this on just the Excel.Programming NG and then going back with more
ideas, it looks like we might want to try wrapping an Excel workbook
inside a VB6 program.

I'm thinking that when the user opens the VB program, it will ask for
his/her name and a password, reads that user's info from the Master
into a new Excel workbook that opens on the user's computer across the
network, lets the user make changes, then on close writes the changed
info back into the Master. The user never touches the Master and sees
no one else's info. The Master Excel workbook, though, is available
to Admin.

Some questions:

(1) I've never done anything across a network before. How difficult
will it be in a Windows XP environment to put a new workbook with this
info on the user's computer (vice just having it open on the server)?

(2) Is it difficult to have VB detect when the Master wb is already
open and tell the user to come back later?

Thanks.
Ed

[Note: pure opinion follows.]

A 'gatekeeper"?

Just like everything else in programming, there is a zillion ways to skin
this poor cat.

The easiest way is to create an ActiveX Exe service and and use COM++/MTS
from a local Client to communicate with it.

Answer to (1): No problem. Let the local client manage it.
Answer to (2): No. As it won't even be an issue.

More information is needed.

-ralph