Groups Concepts and Processes

Groups are used to enable users in groups to access data in databases.

Groups can be thought of as describing the different combinations of users within your organization that need to see specific data in a specific database. That is, this software uses groups to provide a method that allows you to control access to data within the databases based on the users' memberships in groups.

Example:

Create the following groups:

Tampa Area
Houston Area
Senior Management

To the group Tampa Area, add users who are located in the Tampa area. These are users to whom you want to grant access to the Tampa-related data they need to do their job but not allow them to see the data of other groups. As you add a Tampa-related database, select the group Tampa Area on the Access tab. The database you add is available for selection by any member of the Tampa Area group.

To the group Houston Area, add users who are located in the Houston area. These are users to whom you want to grant access to the Houston-related data they need to do their job but not allow them to see the data of other groups. As you add a Houston-related database, select the group Houston Area on the Access tab. The database you add is available for selection by any member of the Houston Area group.

To the group Senior Management, add users that are members of your senior management. These are users to whom you want to grant virtually full access to data they need to do their job. As you add the Tampa-related database, select the Senior Management group on the Access tab. As you add the Houston-related database, select the Senior Management group on the Access tab. The databases you added—both the Tampa-related and Houston-related databases—are available for selection by any member of the Senior Management group.

As you can see from the example, access to data is granted to a group. As the needs of the group change, you can change how access to data is granted to the group and have that change made automatically for each user assigned to that group.

When you assign a user more than one group, the user is granted access to data contained in databases to which that group has been granted access. Use caution when assigning users to multiple groups. The access to data that is withheld in one group may be granted in another.