Index of this page:
Nesting of groups of users in other groups
View video tutorial “Groups of users”
Contents related to the help
() Templates available to each user
() What are the CIFKM elements?
() Administration of templates
() Types of preconfigured elements of the version downloaded from the Web
The groups of users allow one to manage in a simple and practical way who may access and with what faculties, each CIFKM “smartbox” or template, with a view to consulting, using, modifying, eliminating CIFKM “smartbox” or templates. None of these elements will exist (won´t be visible, nor accessible to) for the remaining non-authorized users.
In CIFKM, the persons in an organization are structured in multiple groups of users with functional criteria that are easy to manage. Each group of users may be granted faculties (access and action permissions) over any CIFKM element and over any specific template.
With the groups, one can represent the company, both hierarchically and functionally. For example, the groups may represent areas, subareas, departments, committees and work groups, positions in the organizational chart of the company (in this case, the group that represents a position may have a single member who will, at any time, occupy the position).
When the user is created, he is assigned a personal group of which he is the only member.
The postion groups are created based on the company´s organizational chart (one for each position of the organizational chart). Each user, who already has a personal group of which he is the only member, if he also has a position assigned in the company´s organizational chart, will be included in the user group that that position represents in which he may also be its only member. Later, the personal and position groups will be included in the functional groups such as those corresponding to areas of the company, work groups, committees, etc
The group structure described above forms the basis for assigning access permissions and faculties of each group of users over the CIFKM “smartbox”, and over the templates. Also, with this type of structure, it will be easier to reorganize since one will only have to replace persons in the base, ie, in the position groups of the organizational chart and in the personal groups. This will be done by users with faculties to administrate each group of users.
A group of users (parent group) may also have as members other user groups (child groups). In this case, the members of the original group will be considered members of the parent group, as if they had been incorporated to it individually.
(Click here to see the figure)
A user may be a member of as many user groups as necessary, and these, in turn, may be included in other user groups also as members. Each member of a user group has certain permissions, (group roles) which we describe below, and that are marked in the user group. For example, some members may have the “read” permission, while others may have the “read” and “publish” permissions.
A user group is a functional CIFKM element that may also be composed of a single member. When the user is created, he is automatically assigned a personal group of which he is the only member.
In a user group, one may also assign permissions (group roles) to users who are not members of the group. For example, a non-member user may be authorized to include the group in a CIFKM “smartbox” that he is creating with an element template, so that it is then the members of the included groups (associated with the “smartbox”) who may perform the subsequent actions.
With the groups, one manages to represent the company, both organically and functionally. For example groups may be created to represent areas, subareas, departments, committees or interdepartmental work groups, positions in the organizational chart or posts in the company (in this case, the group may have a single member who will be the person who at each moment occupies the position).
In the user groups, group roles are asssigned to users, whether they are members of it or not.
The question arises: if anyone can have faculties (group roles) assigned with respect to a group, why then, does one distinguish between members and non-members of the group? The answer is that when one group is nested in another group (see figure) only the members (not the non-members) of the first form part of the second.
For CIFKM to be more versatile with respect to user groups, we have distinguished the following two concepts. On the one hand, the concept of group roles that may be assigned to any user, whether or not he is a member of the group, and on the other hand, the concept of being or not a member of the group, since only its members are incorporated into a user group in which it is nested.
In the standard version that is downloaded from the cloud, the roles that may be assigned with respect to a user group are:
- Read role implies having access to the CIFKM elements, and the element and search templates where the group has been included. The user in this case will exhibit, regarding the element or template, the faculties of the element role assigned to the group in the corresponding element. This “read role” does not allow one to include the user group in a CIFKM element, this faculty belongs to the “publisher role”.
- Administrator role implies being able to modify (add, remove users, modify their group roles) and eliminate the group.
- Publisher role implies being able to include or exclude the group from CIFKM elements and of the creation templates of elements and search engines. This implies publishing contents in the group so that they may be available to the users with the “read role” in the group. The “publisher role” in the group doesn´t include the faculties of the “read role”. Thus, for example, a non-member of the group who has the “publisher role” in the group, may receive the requests/orders from the clients, and create for each order a CIFKM element, using the corresponding template where he has marked the “use role” , and include in it the user group so that the users with the “read” role may act and administrate the order. If this user doesn´t have the “read role” assigned in the group, he won´t have access to the elements created to see how the order is managed.
The group roles described (read, administrate, publish) are those that have been created by default in the standard version that is downloaded from the cloud. However, other types of roles may be configured at one´s convenience, grouping and forming other sets of different faculties (See “smartbox” roles, group roles, template roles, and user roles).
Nesting of user groups in other groups
The user groups may be nested in other user groups. A group (parent group) may also have, as members, other groups of users (child groups). In this case, the members of the original group (and not the non-members with assigned roles) will also be members of the parent group. All these members will have the group role which is assigned to the child group in (the window of) the parent group.
The system of groups included in other groups allows one to easily reflect the internal reorganizations of the company in CIFKM. For example, when the position of a user in the company is modified, excluding him from the group that represents an organic position, and including, if appropriate, his successor to the post, will not affect any of the other groups of which he was a member. Also, the change or substitution can be carried out by a CIFKM administrator that has permissions to administrate (group roles) the position groups without being a member of them.
When a user group is created, one may mark the private group box in its window. In this case it won´t be seen by anyone who is not a member of it, nor by the CIFKM administrators. But, we must bear in mind that new user groups can only be created by those users who have this faculty included in their user role.
- The members of a user group may be either individual users or other user groups. If we are considering groups nested in other groups, the users that are in the “members” section of the child group are automatically integrated in the parent group as members. We emphasize however, that they do not drag any type of group role that they had assigned in the child group. This way, if any user is added/excluded from this section of the window of one of the user groups, he will automatically be included/excluded in the groups where the former was included.
- On the other hand, the users that are included in the “other permissions” section of the child group, are not incorporated in the parent group, and they of course, won´t drag with them any permission(s).
- Marking the box “private group” in the user group window, one limits the visibility of the group to only the users who are members or have permissions over it, and it remains out of the CIFKM administrators´ reach. In a private group, it is necessary for at least one of its members to have administrator privileges.
The CIFKM administrators, may access the submenu “Administration/group administration” of the Floating icon menu.
- Menu administration window.
This displays the list of existing user groups, except for those that are marked “private group”, and allows one to create new groups of users. Clicking on any group in the list, the corresponding group opens; in the figure above, of the “Administration area”.
- Group.
In this example, the group called “Administration area” is displayed.
- Private group marker
With the “Private group” mark, one limits the visibility of the group to the member users, and it remains out of the system administrator´s reach. In a private group, it is necessary for at least one of its members to have administrator privileges.
- “Members” section of the group
Either individual users or or other groups may be members of a group. They will be added to the group with the User and group search engine. In the figure one can see the content of this section.
When a group is nested in another group, all the users of the “members” section of the first group are automatically incorporated in the second. However, its group role will be the one that is marked in the parent user group. Thus, if a user is added/excluded from the first group, the result will NOTaffect the groups where this group is nested.
- “Other permissions” section of the group.
This section is similar to the previous section, the main difference being that the users included here aren´t included in the groups in which the group is nested. The users in this section may have assigned the same types of group roles as the those of the members section. That is, as far as the assignment of roles, the sections aren´t differentiated.
- Group nested in another group (group icon)
In the example in the figure, the members of the “Legal area” group, are integrated also as “members” in the “Administration area” group.
- Individual user integrated in the “members” section of the group (individual user icon).
- Marker to indicate if the group refers to the work post of the user
The “Administration area” group that is shown in the figure is not the work post group of any user. This marker is useful for groups that refer to a position in the company´s organizational chart (position groups) and they will normally have a single individual user who will occupy the corresponding post. These posts can be incorporated in other groups; for example, consider a user group representing an executive committee that consists of several single-member work post groups consisting of the members of the committee. When searching for the groups of a user, one may filter so that only the user´s work post or position groups appear.
- Users and groups search engine.
Allows one to do rapid searches of users and position groups to add them to the group.
- Selector to filter the search engine.
Allows one to filter the search engine depending on whether or not one would like to search/add users or groups
- Group roles
In the group are displayed all the group roles that have been configured by the CIFKM administrators so that they can be assigned to the “members” of the group, either users or other nested groups.
The same group roles are displayed in the “other permissions” tab of the group so that they may be assigned to other users that are not members of the group.
In this help, the following group roles have been configured:
-Administrator: The user or group with this group role may access the group and modify the permissions of its members, as well as add or remove members.
-Reader: The users or groups with this permission have access to those CIFKM “smartbox” or documents associated to the group.
-Publisher: Permission to include the group in a CIFKM “smartbox”, allowing the members of the group to access this content.
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