Every User belongs to at least one User Group. Each User Group is of a User Group Type that defines a broader collection of types of users. The Customer type is a special case however, this is used to define the default User Group configuration for all new customer type User Groups.
The Purpose of User Group Types
User Group Types serve to categorise related groups of users across WEBcnx and streamline the addition of new Users and User Groups. This allows for sharing of content, such as Dashboards, to be done at three levels; Users, User Groups and User Group Types. For multi-site environments where there may be designer, sales and customer service user groups at each site for instance, sharing content at the User Group Type level simplifies this configuration. Content can be simply shared with every designer group sharing the same User Group Type association. This also then reduces maintenance should other User Groups be added of the same type in the future.
In the below illustration, we have three such User Group Types; 'Designers', 'Salespeople','Customers'. Any content shared with the 'Customers' User Group Type, for example, would automatically filter down to each customer User Group, removing the need to add and maintain any commonly shared content.
Note. Before creating any new User Group Types or adding any Users or User Groups, there needs to be some suitable Impact User Privileges and Impact User Group Master Tool Settings in first.
Configuring Impact User Privileges
All WEBcnx users have their Impact content primarily controlled by Impact's User Privileges Master Tool Settings. Even if a user has full administrator privileges in WEBcnx, if they don't have privileges in Impact to edit designs, view documents, run standards, etc. they won't be able to do those things in WEBcnx. It is therefore important that the Impact user privileges are configured correctly to avoid any potential confusion when adding users.
Recommended Impact Configuration
As access to all WEBcnx features is controlled by WEBcnx User Group Privileges and Custom Actions, including those requiring Impact access such as designs and documents, it's perfectly safe to configure the Impact User Privilege Master Tool Settings with all privileges. Control of all features is then down to WEBcnx, not some complicated combination of both. For example, if a user has the Impact privileges to view documents and their WEBcnx privileges prevent them from doing so, they won't be able to view documents.
There is one exception to granting all Impact privileges, although even this is optional. It is usually desirable to allow users to add, edit and delete documents in WEBcnx. However, Impact has 3 levels of deleting documents:
- Delete - Contrary to the name, this marks documents as deleted which means they can be undeleted in the future. The document itself along with its meta-data is retained in the database.
- Purge - This allows any selected document to have its document data permanently deleted from the database but the meta-data is retained.
- Obliterate - This permanently deletes both the document and its meta-data from the database. This is unrecoverable should a user use this.
There are two things you should consider before making a decision on whether to enable Purge and Obliterate, will users understand what these mean and do you really want everyone to be able to permanently delete documents? The answer to these two questions is "probably not".
The recommendation is therefore to disable these options in Impact, as shown above, and retain this functionality for purely administrative users. To do this, create a new User Privileges Master Tool Setting in Impact and enable all privileges apart from these two.
Configuring Impact User Groups
Impact will already be configured with various Impact User Groups suitable for managing the design team. As the majority of WEBcnx users will be nServer type users, it's important to categorise these users more suitably.
Impact User Groups need to be associated with an Impact User Privilege Master Tool Setting. This must be imported before creating or importing the Impact User Groups
Depending on whether there will be customers or suppliers using WEBcnx, the recommendation is to create 3 Impact User Group Master Tool Settings and configure these to use the WEBcnx User Privileges created above.
- WEBcnx Standard Users
- WEBcnx Customer Users
- WEBcnx Supplier Users
User Group Type Settings
User Group Types can be accessed from either the dedicated Dashboard Widget or from the User Group widget on the Directory dashboard or other user management dashboard.
- Name - The name should be unique and ideally kept simple; Designers, Sales, Suppliers, etc.
- Description - Optional but ideally describes what type of users would use this setting.
- For selected customers - The default for new settings has this inactive. In this state, it means users of this type can view and create content for all customers. If enabled, when creating the User Group, the user administrator will need to select one customer initially that users of this type are able to view. Once the User Group is created, additional customers can be added to the User Group. Only those selected customers are viewable by members of that User Group.
- Licence - Although a typical installation of WEBcnx has up to 5 different Licence types, only two are selectable for users; Concurrent and Dedicated.
- User Type - There are only two supported user types, used to differentiate Impact users from those users using an external application such as WEBcnx
- Impact - The only User Group Types that should be of an Impact Type are those used for adding Impact designers and other Impact users such as Impact administrators. Impact filters all nServer users out of its user interface to provide a more streamlined experience to users.
- nServer - All non-Impact using users should be of an nServer User Group Type. This prevents WEBcnx users, including customer users, unexpectedly appearing in Impact.
- Impact User Group - Every user in Impact and WEBcnx must belong to an Impact User Group. If this is not configured, you will receive an error when trying to add a user and you won't be able to complete adding them. It is important to ensure there are suitable Impact User Groups configured before updating or adding the User Group Types.
Default User Group Types
The following User Group Types are already created in WEBcnx. Before use, they need updating to use the Impact User Group created above.
- Customer - A system setting that cannot be deleted. The Customer type is a special case and is used to define the Customer User Group Template. This is the only User Group Type that has additional "edit" features. Update to use the "WEBcnx Customer Users" User Group created above.
- Standard - A system setting that cannot be deleted. For smaller installations, most users are likely to be of a Standard type. For larger installations, it is preferable to categorise types of users to make sharing content with users in the same role, but different User Groups. Update to use the "WEBcnx Standard Users" User Group created above.
- Supplier - An example User Group Type to clearly separate external suppliers from internal users and customers. Update to use the "WEBcnx Supplier Users" User Group created above.
Administration Users
Administrator type users typically need access to all functionality. This should also include the Purge and Obliterate document options as an administrator may need to clean up mistakes made by other users. There will already be an Impact User Group that is of a special type where users "are administrators". This bypasses the individual privilege settings of the User Privilege Master Tool Setting and grants users full access to all Impact functionality and additional features available to administrators only. Before configuring the settings below, it's important to verify the name of the current administrator user group in Impact. The default for this is usually "Administrator Users".
Recommended Configuration
- Create a new User Group Type in WEBcnx
- Name: Administrators
- Description: To be used for full administrators only
- For selected customers: No. Administrators should be able to view and administer content for all customers.
- Licence: Dedicated. If all concurrent licences are in use, it would prevent the administrator user logging in so a dedicated licence should always be used for users of this type.
- User Type: nServer. Although a WEBcnx administrator may log into Impact, that will not be their primary role.
- Impact User Group: Administrator Users. Or whichever Impact User Group is used for full administrators.
- Edit the existing WEBcnx "Administrators" User Group and change the User Group Type to be this new "Administrators" type created in step 1. You will find this on the User Group widget on the Directory or other similar user management dashboard.
Suggested Packaging Configuration
For simple, single site installations, it will likely be sufficient to use the three default User Group Types to clearly separate standard users from customers and external suppliers. For larger installations, especially those with multiple sites where users will be in similar roles from site to site, it is recommended to categorise types of users to support the easier sharing of content. The following is a suggestion of such User Group Types.
- Designers
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Dedicated
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: Designer Group (or other similar user group used by Designers)
- Sales
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Dedicated
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: WEBcnx Standard Users
- Customer Service
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Dedicated
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: WEBcnx Standard Users
- Laboratory
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Dedicated
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: WEBcnx Standard Users
- Production
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Dedicated
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: WEBcnx Standard Users
- Management
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Dedicated
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: WEBcnx Standard Users
- Tooling Suppliers - Modify the existing Supplier name
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Concurrent
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: WEBcnx Supplier Users
- Print Plate Suppliers
- For Selected Customers: No
- Licence: Concurrent
- User Type: nServer
- Impact User Group: WEBcnx Supplier Users