User Management: Security Roles

A Security Role is a set of rights which can be assigned to a user. In previous versions of Case Manager, security templates had a similar purpose, except that when a security template was applied to a user the rights were copied over to that user, while the management of the security rights still remained per user. In Case Manager 6 when a security role is assigned to a user, that user’s rights are determined only by the security role: no additional rights can be granted to or revoked from the user. Case Manager 6 still allows you, however, to specify a user’s rights explicitly if no security role is assigned to that user. During an upgrade from Contact Centre 5 to Case Manager 6 the security templates will be migrated as security roles. However, no users will be assigned to these roles during this process. The Security Roles can be configured from either Case Manager (“User Management” in the Tools Menu) or the Configuration Tools (the “Security Roles” section in User Management). A list of the currently available security roles will be displayed from where you can create, edit, or delete roles.

Edit Security Role

When double clicking an existing role, or by making use of the Edit action on the toolbar, you can edit the details of a role. A security role is defined by a name, an optional description, and a checked list of assigned security rights. Changes to assigned rights will affect all users with this role assigned from their next login into Case Manager.

New Security Role

When creating a new security role you are presented with an option to either start with a blank role (no rights assigned), or with a copy of an existing role. The latter option is convenient if you need a new security role that is very similar to an existing one. With the desired option selected you will be presented with the same form as when a role is edited. You have to specify a name for the new security role; the description is optional but recommended to give an indication of the purpose and use of the role. In the list of security rights, check all the rights you wish to grant users with this role.

Delete Security Role

Often it is the case that you wish to restructure your approach to user security, which may lead you to want to delete old security roles. The system allows you to delete security roles, but will first perform an analysis of its current use. If the role is in use (that is, there are users assigned to this role) you will be presented with three options:

• Remove role from users will remove this security role from all the users currently assigned to it. Since there will be no directly assigned rights on these users, they will effectively have no rights assigned to them.
• Preserve rights managed per user copies the rights as defined by the role over to the user to be managed directly and individually on the user’s profile. The security role is subsequently unassigned from the user.
• Move to a different role gives you the option to select another role that will instead be assigned to users with the role to be deleted.

View Users with Role

The View Users action on the toolbar of Security Roles shows a list of all the users assigned to the selected role. As an alternative to editing individual users, you may use this tool to assign roles.

There are two approaches:

• The Assign to Role action assigns a new security role to the selected user from the list. When you see a user in the list (assigned to the current role) which should have another role, this action can be used to move the user out of the current list onto a new role.
• The Add users to role action is used to assign other users to the current role. All the users will be presented from where you may select multiple to assign to the current security role. When you see that users are missing from the list, this action can be used to add these users to the current list.

View Users with Right

You can easily view a list of users with a specific security right by right clicking the security right in the list of rights on either a user or a security role. The View Users with Right option will show you a list of all the users effectively with the right. The users are grouped by their assigned security role to indicate which users obtained the right via which security role, and which users obtained the right via direct assignment.

Custom Field Security

It is possible to create custom security rights to be used in field security guarding read and/or write access. These rights can be managed from the Custom Field Security section in the Data group of the Configuration Tools. When a new right is created it will immediately be available in the lists of security rights for users or roles, from where it can be assigned. These rights can be found in the “Customizable” subgroup of the “Field Security” group in the lists of security rights. The topic of Custom Field Security is covered in more detail in our Data Type Model guide for Case Manager 6.