There are many ways to configure access of Workbooks and individual Worksheets in SQL 2 Excel. It may seem a bit overwhelming, but it's not that complicated and it gives you are wide variety of options to play with.

In SQL 2 Excel you can create Sections and Categories to organize your Workbooks. Each Section and Category can have it's own access setting. On top of that, the access to the Workbook and the individual Worksheets can be set as well.

Publish a menu to the SQL 2 Excel component to provide a way for the users to browse your reports and download the ones he/she has permission to. Or you can install and publish the SQL 2 Excel Module to on the left/right side of some of your pages to display links to the (dynamic) Excel Workbooks from SQL 2 Excel.

This diagram illustrates the relationships between Sections, Categories, Workbooks and Worksheets.

The SQL 2 Excel Module is first of all Published to one or more pages. You can set the Access level on the Module to the standard Joomla access permissions, Public, Registered and Special. For example, if the Module access is set to Registered or Special then a Public/Not logged in user will not even see the Module at all when viewing the page. But let's assume the Module has been published and the user has permissions to see it for the following discussion.

Sections and Categories

Sections and Categories in SQL 2 Excel each have two access settings:

• Published : Yes / No
  
• Access : Public / Registered / Special
  
  

If the Section is not published then no Workbooks from this Sectionwill be shown in the SQL 2 Excel Module

If the Section is Published , then it's up to the Access setting if the user is allowed to see any Workbooks from this Section.

The same thing applies to Categories.

Workbooks

Workbooks are assigned to a specific Setcion and category. If the Sections and Categories are published and the user has permission to see them then it's up to the access setting on the Workbooks in this Section/Category. The Workbooks also have two settings to control it's access :

• Published : Yes / No
  
• Access : Public / Registered / Special

If a Workbook is not published then it will not show up in the Module list. If the Workbook is published then it's up to the Access setting. If the user has access then the Workbook will be shown in the list, assuming the user has access to at least one of the worksheets that the Workbook includes.

Worksheets

Each worksheet also has access control, similar to Sections/Categories and Workbooks. This makes it possible to setup a Workbook that has some Worksheets that everyone gets, but one or more Worksheets that only Registered or Special users will get.

Example

Assume Module, Section, Categories, Workbooks and Worksheets are all Published. The access setting is set to either Public ar Registered on  the different Worksheets.

What will a Public user see when he goes to a page where the SQL 2 Excel Module is published.

1. He will see the Module, because it's published with Public access
2. He will see the following Workbooks:
   
   
   • WB A
   • WB B
     
   • WB D
     
     
3. He will NOT see:
   
   
   • WB C - because there are NO Worksheets that the user has permission to see.
     
     
4. When a Public user downloads WB A then he will only get one Worksheet, WS 1.
   
   

A registered user however will see all Workbooks and will get all Worksheets included when he downloads the Workbooks

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