The Maintain Users and Groups function in the Tools menu and the Users and Groups button in the Tools tab of the ribbon allow administrators to add, edit, and delete users who are authorized to use Reporting4Act!, and define groups of users. User groups are key to Reporting4Act! security; when a report or folder is created, one of the options is which user groups have rights to that report or folder. This is sometimes referred to a "role-based" security, where a particular group of users have a role, such as clerks or managers.

When Reporting4Act! is first installed, a single user with the name "ADMIN" and password "ADMIN" is created. There are also two groups: Administrators and Everyone. The Administrators group consists of those users who can access the Maintain Users and Groups dialog and other important functions. All Reporting4Act! users are automatically members of the Everyone group.

If the logged-in user is a member of the Administrators group, the Maintain Users and Groups function appears in the Tools menu and the Users and Groups button appears in the Tools tab of the ribbon. When this function is chosen, the following dialog appears:

There are two pages of information in this dialog. The Users page allows you to add, edit, or remove users. The Groups page allows you to add, edit, or remove user groups. Across the top of the dialog is a toolbar of functions that apply to either users or groups, depending on which page is selected.

Users

The Users page allows you to maintain the users authorized to access Reporting4Act!. At the left of the page is a list of authorized users; click one in the list to select it. To the right are text boxes where you can edit information about the selected user and a control where you can specify what groups the user belongs to. The User can create reports option indicates whether this user can create reports or not. If it's turned off, the New, Copy, and Edit functions in the Reports Explorer are disabled for that user. If more than one type of license has been registered, an option to select which version the selected user runs appears instead of the User can create reports option. The Advanced user option indicates that this user can use the Advanced Report Designer, edit the SQL statement of a report, and schedule reports.

• To add a user, click the New button. Note that the New button is disabled if there are already as many users defined as there are licenses installed.

• Enter the user name and password (and optionally the first and last names). Click the "show password" button toggle between displaying the password in plain text or as "*****" (the password is always stored encrypted regardless of the setting of this button).

• Turn off the User can create reports option if the user cannot create or edit reports, and turn on the Advanced user option if the user can use the Advanced Report Designer.

• All users are members of the Everyone group, and they cannot be removed from that group. However, you can indicate that this user is also a member of another group by selecting the desired group in the Not a member of list and clicking the Add button (the one with the right-pointing arrow) to add that group to the Member of list. To make this user a member of all groups, click the Add All button (the right-pointing double arrow button). To remove the user from a group, select that group in the Member of list and click the Remove button (the one with the left-pointing arrow). To remove the user from all groups but Everyone, click the Remove All button (the left-pointing double arrow button).

• To save the new user, click the Save button. You aren't allowed to leave the user name blank, nor can you enter the same name as an existing user. If you leave the password blank, you are asked to confirm that you want to do that. To undo any changes, click the Cancel button.

• To edit a user, select the user in the list, then change any of the settings for the user. Click the Save button to save any changes or the Cancel button to cancel your changes.

• To delete a user, select the user in the list, then click the Delete button. You are prompted to confirm that you want to delete the user. Note that you cannot delete the last user in the Administrators group or else no one can use this dialog again.

Groups

The Groups page allows you to maintain user groups. At the left of the page is a list of groups; click one in the list to select it. To the right is a text box where you can edit the name of the group (this is disabled for the Administrators and Everyone groups, but is available for any other group) and a control where you can select the members of the group. There are also controls where you can specify whether the group can access a particular data provider and a certain database.

To add a group, click the New button. Enter the group name and specify which users are members of the group. To add a user to the group, select the user in the Non-members list and click the Add button to add that user to the Members list. To make all users a member of this group, click the Add All button. To remove a user from the group, select that user in the Members list and click the Remove button. To remove all users from the group, click the Remove All button.

To indicate that members of the group have access to a particular data provider, click to add a check mark in the box in front of the data provider name in the list. Click again to remove access to the data provider. To give members of the group access to every data provider, turn on the All option. You must give the group access to at least one data provider or you will get a warning when you try to save the group.

If multiple databases are available, a Databases control is available. To indicate that members of the group have access to a particular database, click to add a check mark in the box in front of the database name in the list. Click again to remove access to the database. To give members of the group access to every database, turn on the All option. You must give the group (except for the Everyone group) access to at least one database or you will get a warning when you try to save the group.

So only certain users have access to certain databases, turn off all databases for the Everyone group and then turn it on group-by-group.

To save the new group, click the Save button. You aren't allowed to leave the group name blank, nor can you enter the same name as an existing group. To undo any changes, click the Cancel button.

To edit a group, select it in the list, then change any of the settings for the group. You cannot change the members of the Everyone group because, by definition, all users are members of that group. Click the Save button to save any changes or the Cancel button to cancel your changes.

To delete a group, select it in the list, then click the Delete button. You are prompted to confirm that you want to delete the group. You cannot delete the Administrators or Everyone groups.