Groups

Purpose

This article refers to the usage of groups.

Groups refer to groups of Users. 

• Groups can be used to assign security or act as a role for workflows. 

It is a best practice that a group should be assigned permissions to ease the administration of the system. When looking at permissions for any screen, groups will be displayed by default in the member selection list.

Use of Groups

It is recommended to use groups to manage permissions. If groups are assigned permissions as opposed to individual users, it is easier to maintain when changes need to be made.

• When a user's rights need to be removed, instead of having to remove the permissions from multiple folders, projects, forms, or documents, the user could instead be removed from a group that is assigned to these things which would remove access to all at once.

Administrators can also use groups to manage workflows as well as training on documents and forms. Refer to How to Assign Training [[INSERT LINK TO ARTICLE]] for more information.

Special Groups

There are two groups that are set up in VisualVault during the database creation process:

• VaultAccess Group
• VaultAdmins Group

VaultAccess Group

The first created user when a database is created will be assigned to this group by default. 

The members of the VaultAccess group have Owner access to ALL documents, forms, and reports in VisualVault. Users assigned to this group will also inherit special features to prevent them from being deleted, modified, or disabled. 

The following are a list of changes to the user that occur when they are added to this group:

• Users cannot be deleted from VisualVault.
• User accounts cannot be disabled.
• User accounts will not be allowed to expire.
• User accounts will not allow the password to expire but they will be prompted to change their password on a regular basis if this policy is enabled.
• User type cannot be changed.

VisualVault will allow administrators to remove all users from the VaultAccess group except for one. 

• It is recommended that administrators use great caution when doing this to ensure that they do not lock themselves out of VisualVault. 
• Only members of the VaultAccess Group can assign other VaultAccess users to the group.

VaultAdmins Group

This is a default group created during the VisualVault installation process. There are no default users assigned to this group during installation. 

The members of the VaultAdmins group have access to the Administration Tools, which grants them the authority to manage users, groups, other company locations, customers, and suppliers. 

• In order for a VaultAdmins user to be able to view forms, documents, etc., the group would need to be added to the areas as their level of access is not the same as the VaultAccess group.

Only members of the VaultAdmins or VaultAccess group can assign users to this group.