Need to Encrypt One Field in Report 1

[karahouston]

I am hoping to build a report from a table in which one field in the report is encrypted but all other fields remain untouched. When viewing the table itself I would like to be able to read all fields, but then have the one field encrypted when viewing the report. Is this possible? How would I do this?

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[humbleprogrammer]

Just curious - Why not just leave that field out of the report so it doesn't display at all?

 

[karahouston]

It's a field my manager wants in the report, but she wants to be able to share the report with people who don't/shouldn't have access to the information from that field. It would only need to be a basic masking of the values.

 

[humbleprogrammer]

An easy solution is to put a bunch of X's in that fields Control Source. Open report in design view, right click the field, go to properties, Data tab, change the control source to XXXXXXX.

 

[karahouston]

Would it be possible to have only half of the field masked in that manner? For example, if the field is a 16 digit number could the first 8 or 12 digits be showing but then have the last 4 or 8 digits be X's?

 

[humbleprogrammer]

Yes. For demo purposes, lets assume the field name in your table is called 'SecretNumber'.

Type the following for your report fields control source:
=Left([SecretNumber],8) & "XXXXXXXX"

or for 12 digits:

=Left([SecretNumber],12) & "XXXX"

you can use other characters rather then X's if wanted like:
=Left([SecretNumber],8) & "%#*X!#@"

 

[karahouston]

Thank you, that should be perfect!

 

[MichaelRed]

But ... back to the original question -WHY-? Once it is encrypted or masked neither 'other users' OR the supervisor can read it, so it (appears) to then be useless. To get back to the value for any real use, you would need the code breaker (or unmasked version).

so, ???????????????????,




MichaelRed
m.red@att.net

Searching for employment in all the wrong places

 

[karahouston]

When the last four digits of the numbers are masked the first 12 digits are typically different enough from one another that someone reading the report would be able to tell that they represent different values, but they would not have access to the full value.

If we were to mask the numbers completely, you're right, there would be no reason to include them at all. Of course if that's what's requested in a report I'll include it whether it makes sense or not.