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Last updated: March 2010

Using Office.com templates

The New tab in the Microsoft Office Backstage view (Click the File tab, and then click New) can provide you with up-to-date assistance downloaded from Office.com for documents that are based on templates. You can also send feedback on the templates and provide a numeric rating for each template that you download.

When you open a template or a file that is based on a template, Access 2010, depending on your online Help settings, contacts Office.com. It sends the ID for that template, the program and version that you are currently using, together with standard computer information.

The template ID is used to identify the original template as downloaded from Office.com or included in your Access 2010 installation. It does not uniquely identify your Access database. The ID is the same for all users of the same template.

Linking to data sources

Linked tables and other data sources are saved in metadata as part of your Access 2010 database. In some cases, the link might include your user name or information about servers on your network. In the case of a data connection, you can choose to save a user name or password within the data connection link.

Also, if you have associated databases, the location of the associated database is saved in the Access database.

Printing

When you print an Access 2010 file and then save that file, Access 2010 saves the path to your printer with the file. In some cases, the path might include a user name or computer name.

Document Workspace sites

Access 2010 allows you to access a Document Workspace site on a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 site. A Document Workspace site is a shared space where you can collaborate with other team members on one or more Access databases.

When you access a Document Workspace site, Access 2010 downloads data from the Document Workspace site to provide you with information about that site. This data includes:

  • Name of the SharePoint Foundation site

  • URL or address of the site

  • Names, e-mail addresses, and permission levels of the site users

  • Lists of the documents, tasks, and other information available from the site

Access 2010 also stores a list of the SharePoint Foundation sites that you have visited on your computer, in the form of cookies. This list is used to provide you with quick access to the sites that you have visited before. The list of sites that you have visited is not accessed by Microsoft and is not exposed to the Internet unless you choose to make the list more broadly available.

SharePoint Foundation

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 provides shared, Web-based Workspace sites where you can collaborate on documents or meetings.

When you access a SharePoint site, by using either your Web browser or any Office program, the site saves a cookie to your computer if you have permissions to create a new subsite on that site. Taken together, these cookies form a list of sites to which you have permissions. This list is used by several Office programs to provide you with quick access to the sites that you have visited before.

The list of sites that you have visited is not accessed by Microsoft and is not exposed to the Internet unless you choose to make the list more broadly available.

In SharePoint Foundation, when you create a new Web site or list, or add or invite people to an existing Web site or list, the site saves the following for each person, including your:

  • Full name

  • E-mail address

A user ID is added to every element that you or the other users of the site add to or modify on the site. As with all of the content on the SharePoint site, only administrators and members of the site itself should have access to this information.

All elements of the SharePoint site include two fields: Created By and Modified By. The Created By field is filled in with the user name of the person who originally created the element and the date when it was created. The Modified By field is filled in with the user name of the person who last modified the Access 2010 database and the date when it was last modified.

Administrators of the servers where SharePoint sites are hosted have access to some data from these sites, which is used for analyzing the usage patterns of the site and improving the percentage of time that the site is available. This data is available only to the server administrators and is not shared with Microsoft unless Microsoft is hosting the SharePoint site. The data specifically captured includes the names, e-mail addresses, and permissions of everyone with access to the site.

All users with access to a particular SharePoint site might search and view all content available on that site.

Auditing

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 provides auditing features that allow administrators to keep a reliable audit trail of how users are working with certain content.

When SharePoint Foundation administrators enable the Auditing feature, the server automatically records in the SharePoint content database certain actions performed by the user. These actions include view, edit, check-in, and check-out. For each recorded action, the server records identifying information about the file, the action, and the user's SharePoint ID. No data is sent to Microsoft as part of this feature.

This feature is off by default and is only available to administrators of SharePoint sites where content is stored.

Data collection in Access

Access 2010 allows you to collect data via e-mail by sending forms based on HTML or based on Microsoft InfoPath 2010. When you send a data collection e-mail message, the e-mail addresses of all recipients are collected and stored in the Access database. You can use this information to track data received from the recipients and to send e-mail messages to them in the future. You can choose to have the data submitted via e-mail stored in the database automatically or manually.

Where your name might be stored

In certain instances, Access 2010 stores your name to provide you with a better experience when using some features. For example, your name is stored in these locations:

  • Author fields

  • AuthorName file property

You can remove your name from these fields and properties by doing the following:

  1. Click the File tab.

  2. Under Help, click Options, and then click Current Database.

  3. Under Application Options, select the Remove personal information from file properties on save check box.

You can remove your name and initials from the Name and Initials fields.

Microsoft Office solutions created by other companies might also include your name or other personal information in the custom properties associated with your file.

If you use the Microsoft Office Web Control, Microsoft Excel Data Access, DataCalc, or other features that allow you to connect directly to another data source, your authorization information (user ID and password) might be saved within your Access database. To change or delete this authorization information, you need to change the properties of the connection appropriately.

Digital signatures

A digital signature is an optional feature that can help you to authenticate the identity of the person who sent you an Access database. A digital signature is a unique encrypted value of the data in the Access database that you are signing. When you send an Access database with a digital signature, the signature is sent to the recipient, along with the data in the Access database and a trusted digital certificate from you (the sender). The digital certificate is issued by a certification authority, such as VeriSign, and contains information to authenticate the sender and verify that the original contents of the Access database have not been altered. Access might automatically contact the certification authority online to verify the digital signature.

When you sign an Access database, you see a dialog box that shows the information that is included in the digital signature, such as your system date and time, operating system version number, Microsoft Office version number, and Access 2010 version number.

Database Protection

Database Protection helps you to protect your Access 2010 database by encrypting it with a password.

To encrypt the database with a password, do the following:

  1. Click the File tab.

  2. Click Info, and then click Encrypt with Password.

  3. Type a password in the Password and Verify boxes.

The password that you enter is not stored with the file and is used to generate keys to encrypt the file. You have the option to remove the password and encryption on the database. To remove the encryption, do the following:

  1. Click the File tab.

  2. Click Info, and then click Decrypt Database.

  3. Type your password in the Password box.

Caching and synchronization of data

Information contained in your Access 2010 databases, or in external tables linked to your Access databases might be stored locally on your computer as an Access table in your database. This is done to help improve the performance of Access 2010. You can disable this feature by:

  1. Click the File tab.

  2. Under Help, click Options.

  3. Click the Current Database tab.

  4. Click Never Cache.

Microsoft Office Web Application files

Certain Access 2010 files download information from the Internet or an intranet. This sends standard computer information to the source of the information. A dialog box asks you if you want to send this information the first time you open a published application. You can choose to dismiss this dialog for future requests by clicking the Do not show this message again check box.

Web browser control

When you open a form in an Access 2010 file that has a Web browser control, data from your application might be sent to an Internet Web site identified by the Web browser control.

Access functions

When you open an Access 2010 file, that file might have an expression that uses functions, such as CurrentWebUser, CurrentWebUserGroups, or IsCurrentWebUserInGroup. The file might include functions that retrieve user name, login name, e-mail address, or information regarding what user groups from a SharePoint site. By default, this information is stored in the Access 2010 file in offline mode. You can choose not to store this information in the file by doing the following:

  1. Click the File tab.

  2. Under Help, click Options.

  3. Click Current Database.

  4. Under Caching Web Service and SharePoint tables, select the Use the cache format that is compatible with Microsoft Access 2010 or later check box, and then select either the Clear Cache on Close check box or the Never Cache check box.

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