What are Groups?
Groups, found under the User Management section within Administration, are utilized to apply bulk permissions to a set of users. It's especially useful to create Groups when your team has many Catalyst users. That way you can simply add your user(s) to a group, based on that group's permissions, rather than setting security permissions for each individual user one-at-a-time.
Group Security Overview
Catalyst security acts as an umbrella to all tools, screens, and data in the web application. Group level security allows an administrator to provide sweeping access at any navigation or hierarchical level for a group of users across all of Catalyst. It's easy to create Groups and to add or remove users from Groups.
Note: Group and User permissions are additive. This means that the higher level permission will take the forefront. An example of this is when a user has Read access for something as an individual, but is a member of a group that has Write access to that same thing. In this example, the user will get Write access.
Creating a New Group
- Navigate to Administration > User Management > Group. Click the tile labeled "Group".
- Click the "Add User Group" button at the bottom right.
- Fill out the simple form, including a group name and any desired group description. Click Save.
- Users: Choose the users you want added to this group (on the right) from the list of available users (on the left). Group members inherit the permissions assigned to the group. To remove a user from the group, click the X next to their name or deselect the checkbox next to their name.
- Navigation Permissions: These define which sections (e.g. Planning, Analysis, Administration, etc.), and subsequent tiles within those sections (e.g. Financial Planning, User Management, etc.), a group will have access to. Depending on whether you choose "Read" or "Edit" access for each content area will determine whether or not the group members can actually click on and access the corresponding tiles within each section or tab, rather than just being able to see them.
- Hierarchy Permissions: If you want to include Hierarchy Permissions for this user group, then select the next tab. Hierarchy Permissions apply to users that will need to access the Manage Hierarches section in the Administration tab. A common reason for needing this access is to map unassigned accounts or when it's necessary to add a new hierarchy or manage current hierarchies.
- Permissions Summary: Once you've established your group's permissions and gone through each tab, you're done! You can double check the group's permissions and security on the last tab, called the Summary page. This page is useful for understanding what a group has or needs access to in the Catalyst instance.