Multiple programmers, Program protection?

[[Ja...]]

Good afternoon everyone. I was searching the forums and didn't see anything on this issue but I am figuring it has to have been addressed before. I apologize if it has. I also apologize as this will probably be a semi-long post.

The company I work for I have been the only programmer now for a while. When I came back into the position I had a lot on my plate and was behind on what they wanted to be done. One of the other bosses had been suggesting before I even came back to the position that we should train another person to learn the CMMs. We were fine with that. The problem is he wanted to have one of his people trained. There is only one person we felt comfortable with that felt would do a good and honest job with the programming. The other supervisor didn't want that person to get trained and was suggesting others. We didn't feel comfortable with the others and it eventually fell to the wayside.

Back to me being behind. One day I was writing a program for our toolroom and the worker that usually runs programs (not creates) told me that her lead was gone to training. I asked what kind and she said he had been sent to Zeiss for CMM training. After creating my program, I went to my boss and asked if they were aware of this. She said no. Come to find out, the lead that was trying to get one of his guys to go to training, somehow got approval to send one of his guys without anyone else knowing about it.

Since he has been trained, we have had several things with the CMM that he has just taken upon himself to do or take care of and not informing anyone else about. Mind you, our quality department does the weekly/daily calibration of the CMMs, I write all of the programs and my boss orders all the parts/accessories/probes/etc. One day I get a call from the QA tech that there is a new probe on our Toolroom CMM. Again no one knew about it. Come to find out he had ordered what he thought was a 1x40mm (Is actually a 1.5x40) probe and an XXT 1 probe adapter. We have an XXT3. So he fixed it by popping out the locator ball and pushing it back into the spot that matches the others............. 😡
Had he followed our normal process of going through our boss we would have ordered the correct adapter, or at least had we known he ordered it, could have sent it back to swap for the correct one and same with the probe.

While he has told me he hasn't written any programs, I have found a folder of programs they are using for several tool measurements. Lately, I have been having to go over and fix programs I have already fixed or completely redo programs because they are messed up.

So my question is, is there any way to protect the programs from edits? Is there a way to put a password on the files themselves? Or even some way of tracking it to know when someone else has been in it? We already use the Autorun pages but again, since he has been trained, I was told to give him a login and he never logs out of it so anyone is able to go into any program.

[[Cl...]]

Autorun. You can assign privileges. We use it on all our machines. I have it set so all they can do is run a program.

[[Ja...]]

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We use Autorun already. But since the guy went to training, I was told to give him a login to create programs. He never logs out of it. I believe he is the one messing with the other programs.

[[Th...]]

AFAIK the user account privileges are the only real safeguards against program modification. If you were told to give this person a Calypso account with full privileges then you're out of luck as far as preventing changes. The measurement plan info window does log the most recent saved changes by date and user, so you can at least know if something has been tampered with.

[[Ow...]]

Aside from the already suggested.

You might have to have administrative rights to the computer Calypso is on (I'm not sure because I've always had it) but, you can open an individual program folder and right click on the white inspection file, choose properties and select the Read-Only checkbox.
Then the program cannot be changed and saved, they'd have to do a save-as.
However, if they have rights, they can just undo the read-only if they know which file to do it on.

[[De...]]

If you store the data files in a location other than the program directory, you could just use windows permissions to block write permission to the folder except for the user that is allowed to 'approve' programs.

That way they could write all the programs they wanted so long as they did not save them in the same location as programs that had been proven to be good already.

This would require that whoever put programs in the approved directory would need to be logged in as a windows user that had write permission to the 'approved' folder.

Will not do any good however if the powers that be just say the new person needs rights to save there too though.

[[Th...]]

I posted the same thing as Derek, 6 minutes late. Ignore me.

I would add, though, that if any tech-based blocking solution gets shot down by this other person's boss or whoever, then you've got bigger problems.

[[Si...]]

I am going thru the same thing. I was only Programmer for 4 years. They hired someone to help out and they had Manual CMM Only. They never had automated and did not understand the CP and CG etc.. I was told to give her the same access as myself.. Well, Aft er many crashes and broken probes within the 1st 6 months of there hiring.... I now changed the provledge of them being able to Save Programs they did not create. Which is 99% of the programs.

So they can make edits, run the program ect... But cant save. I also did this because I would come in and the OG program is now changed. I would suggest doing that.

[[No...]]

Calypso's security is worse than leaving a pile of gold nuggets on your town's market square next to a sign saying "Hands off!" 🤣
With very little knowledge you can override any restrictions within a minute.

[[Ja...]]

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Silvio,
So are they able to save programs they created new?
And which setting is it that allows for this setup? That sounds much better.

[[Me...]]

You got to talk to someone. Get a hold of this guy.
We had a temp a while back who started doing the same thing.
He eventually crashed and burned, (not literally). Though a few probes lost.
I had some shouting matches with him. The owner of the company ended up
throwing him out for a couple of days. Apparently he also had run ins with him.
WITH THE THE BOSS???
If your in charge, then your in charge. Rules have to be set. Or your going to find yourself reinstalling the whole software because of this jokers stupidity.

[[Si...]]

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Yes, They can Create a NEW Measurement and save that, as long as its under that users account. They can not save a program they made edits to that any other user created.

Under Privileges, There is a check box "SAVE MEASUREMENT PLANS FROM OTHER USERS" Uncheck that for them thru the Master Account and they wont be able to save changes made to your programs. They can edit and run the changes but when they o to save.. just sit back and laugh at the wasted time.

Also, if you uncheck "EXECUTE MODIFIED MEASUREMENT PLANS FROM OTHER USERS" this takes away the "Execute/F9" option. So if they run a full program and one feature fails, they have to re run the entire program again and can not simply run just selected features. This will really irk them lol.

[[Ja...]]

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So I got a call the other day asking what is going on.
Apparently the last time the probes were qualified it didn't get switched back to his user account and he had created a program under that account. He later was under his account and he was making changes to that program he created. When he was done he was trying to save and it wouldn't let him. He called me, I came over and looked at it. Showed how if you create a new program in your account it would save and be able to be edited but not with any other programs. So much better now. Thank You for this Silvio

[[Lo...]]

Is there a way to assign already made prgs to a creator?

All of our existing prgs were created using the "master" account. I want to eventually move to log in with multiple people creating programs and restrict access to being able to modify prgs made by someone else.

How do I change all of our programs to be created by me and not "master"?

[[Si...]]

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I do not think you can change the creation date/user of said programs. Prior to my arrival 5 yrs ago the Master account created Inch and MM Templates that I would just use when making a new program. So, Creation date was always March 2015.. Even if you edit the program or make a new program with that template.. it wont change. Try a SAVE AS, then check the Measurement Plan Data for Creation Date to see if it changed to which ever user did the save as? Not sure that will do much tho.

I would liek to know this as well if we can change creation Users.