Help needed on certain software

Hello I work in a theatre company and need help finding either a private area for the staff to hold the information on the cast we have aswell as a picture so we know who is who, or a piece of software that is easy to run, I tried looking for some excel templates called membership database but couldn’t find anything that I liked and hopefully want to get something working before the term starts again.
All the help would be most grateful
Answer #1
If I am understanding what you are asking for correctly you should definitely be able to use Excel for what you are looking for. There may be a software out there and I encourage you (and others) to keep looking and offer suggestions but in the mean time I can offer my advice on how this would be done with Excel.
Since you are asking about a ‘private area’ I will assume that this file is stored in a public location. This poses a slight problem since you can password protect an Excel file so only users who know the password can access or read the file, but you cannot prevent the file from being deleted. Perhaps an online storage location like Google Docs or investing in a USB drive that a responsible member could keep track of, or both, or something similar? This file would be safe to exchange virtually anywhere since it is safe from prying eyes but it cannot protect itself from getting lost (i.e. you need a safe reliable back-up). Let me know if you are completely unfamiliar with what I am talking about.
In the mean time in regards to setting up such an Excel workbook I do not think this should be too difficult. First things first if you want to password protect an Excel file there are many pages on the internet that document how to do this. A quick Google search came up with this result:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000748.htm
Depending on the version of Excel this process may vary slightly but overall it will be pretty much the same, just with a few buttons moved. This will allow you to put a password on the file so users cannot read or modify the file. You can put separate passwords for both actions or the same depending on what you need.
Now in regards to setting up the Excel spreadsheet…. I will assume since you were looking for a template you (and no one in the group) is too familiar with Excel. This isn’t too big of a problem unless of course you are trying to create quite the complex database. I cannot imagine it is as long as all you want is a photo and some information to identify each member, but without more information I can’t offer any specific advice. I’d have questions like does this need to look good, any specific order or prerequisites for how the data is entered, and who will be maintaining this, as in do they have at least basic Excel knowledge?
If you would like you can private message me what should be included in this workbook and I’ll see if I can put something together for you. I don’t mean private information either, just an outline of what needs to be included (i.e. photo, name, address, id number etc….) and possibly a few answers to the questions asked above. As long as it isn’t anything too complex I’d be happy to help and should have a little free time in the next days to come.