California Department of Parks and Recreation uses Citrix for almost all our TMS users, who work from a variety of locations throughout the state, both on and off our WAN. They can access TMS from any virtually any computer with internet connection (preferably broadband or WAN), Internet Explorer, and the Citrix ICA client (a simple download). The user is authenticated to the network and TMS using their standard network login, and connects to one of several Citrix servers on which the application is running (data and images reside elsewhere). As I understand it, the user's computer serves as a terminal, with Citrix sending optimized screen shots to the user and returning their key strokes back to the application. The performance (text and still images) is excellent for users on the WAN and with broadband connections (cable or DSL). Dial-up connections are quite usable for text-only screens, but become painful when images are involved. Older versions of Citrix supported only 256 colors (ugly!), but current versions offer 16 and 24 bit color options, making the quality of still images indistinguishable from those viewed via a local client. Accessing audio and video media attached to records is beyond our current Citrix capabilities, however, at least at current bandwidths. In addition to the flexible access and good performance, another upside of the Citrix approach is to simplify installation of new releases - it only needs to be done on the Citrix server(s), not on each of the individual users computers. A potential downside of the Citrix approach is the additional institutional committment required to install and support the Citrix server farm (we use Citrix for a number of other enterprise-wide applications as well). We've been fortunate so far to have good Citrix support, but it does require specialists. I'm sure there are other technical issues (firewalls, network security, etc. etc.) that make this more complex than I'm aware (I'm not an IT specialist), but from a user's perspective, it has worked very nicely for us so far. (I sound like a Citrix salesman - I'm not!) >>> [log in to unmask] 8/25/2004 2:05:45 PM >>> Are there any institutions out there that allow their staff to access TMS from their home? Our museum may be offering telecommuting as an option for our employees, and I was curious how other institutions addressed this issue. Rob Morgan TMS Database Administrator Baltimore Museum of Art 10 Art Museum Drive Baltimore, MD 21211 [log in to unmask] 410-396-6489 (phone) 410-396-6562 (fax) Larry Felton, Cultural Resource Division (916) 375-5917 (M/W/F) (916) 653-9612 (T/Th)