Auto FE Updater

Enterprise Edition - View users in backend database files

This screen shows you the users in the Access and SQL Server backend databases..  This can be useful if you need to do a compact and repair of the backend database or work with tables, fields, indexes or relationships.   See the Lockout Configuration File screen to lock out the users.

The list of users, along with names, contact information and last login date and time,  currently accessing the back end database is only available if your organization has purchased an Enterprise Edition license and have enabled logging of all errors, actions and files copied.

Program name only works for SQL Server databases.  This can be somewhat misleading at times.  For example a client who used the Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant for Access tool to upsize the database has SSMA in the Program Name field sometimes.

If you see some unexpected unhandled database types you can click on the Copy All tale Connect Strings to Clipboard command button.  I would suggest pasting into Excel and resizing the first column.

SQL Server databases

The utility can't display some developers who are in the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio because they are then utilizing the master database even if they have a  table, query and/or other objects open in the backend database.

You, the developer, must have VIEW SERVER STATE permissions on the SQL Server to see all executing sessions on the instance of SQL Server. Otherwise, you will see only your current session   The easiest way would be to open a connection (i.e. using sqlcmd or Management Studio) using your sysadmin credentials and issue the following statement:

GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO <your network userid>

Connections via User or System DSNs are not currently supported but will be in a future release.   Email me to let me know if this is a problem and I'll move it up in priority.

Access appears to sometimes close the connection to SQL Server after some period of time so inactive users might not be displayed.  Research on this problem is still underway.

Remarks

Consider using Idle Detect Timeout code to force the users out of the database in a reasonable amount of time such as a half hour or hour.

In the above example AAE039 has no data entered.   While unusual this can happen if the user at the workstation is using another application besides your front end database as started by the Auto FE Updater utility.   Examples could be developers opening the database in Access or power users using Excel to open the database directly.   You can add their workstation and contact information in the Workstation tab in the AutoFEUpdater Log Viewer database for future use.

The Auto FE Updater utility does create a brief connection to the backend databases while it connects to them.  This connection is removed from the form being displayed so as to reduce confusion.

If the users are on Terminal Server/Citrix then it can't determine which user is connected..  The Auto FE Updater can only fetch the workstation name of a connected user from an Access database file.      You can implement the AutoFEUpdater_ExitApp code as found in the Auto FE Updater Sample Code Vx.xx.mdb in the distribution zip file.   Then only users without the App Exit time will be displayed on this form.

If you are getting the message "Jet 3033 - You do not have the necessary permissions to the MDB/MDE.  This is likely due to the MDB/MDE being secured.  You must then specify the MDW file path and name, User and Password in the INI file. " then fill in the fields in the Workgroup File Settings page.

Connection strings not handled by this utility

Please email me the list of connection strings if you would like me to handle those databases. Currently only Access and some SQL Server DSN-Less connection strings.