Users Single Dialogs Workspace

Use this workspace to add and delete Maconomy users.

When you add a user, you create a user name, associate it with an employee number (if relevant), and enter settings that control the user's access to Maconomy windows, data, and actions.

To speed up the process of adding new users, you can create user types, which are templates that supply the settings that you normally apply to new Maconomy users. You set up user types in the User Types window.

You can also set up access groups, which are groups of Maconomy users, often with similar jobs, who share the same access settings. For example, you might have an access group for salespeople. You set up access groups in the Groups window.

Each user consists of a name with which the user can log in to Maconomy and the Portal and other information about the user, such as the period in which the user is valid and can log in, derived dimensions, and any connection to an employee number. In addition, you can assign access rights to each user, thus defining, for example, which windows the user can open, which data should be available to the user in those windows, and which actions the user should be allowed to use in the Action menu. You do this in the User Dialog Groups sub-tab of this window, and in the Groups, Actions, and User Access Levels windows.

When you create a user, you must specify a user type that identifies a template user whose information is copied to the new user. This means that the new user inherits both the static information in this window and the access rights defined for the template user. However, any employee number and validity period that you specify before you press Enter are not overwritten by the template information. If you select a user type to which no template user is assigned, Maconomy does not copy any information to the new user.

In addition to identifying a template user, the user type also determines whether or not a new user must be assigned to another type of Maconomy information, for instance a customer. For example, this can be useful if you are running a customer portal or web shop based on Maconomy information, and you want your customers to be able to access their own customer information and information about their own orders. In such cases, this window enables you to create each customer as a user so that the customer can log in to Maconomy and access information relevant to himself. You must assign new users to another type of information if you provide a value for the Database Relation field for the selected user type in the User Types window. If you specify a relation on the user type, the user is based on and assigned to an entry in the relation in question. You must define the appropriate entry by entering its key values in the Key 1-4 fields. For example, if you specify the Customer relation for the user type, you must specify the number of the customer to which the user should be assigned. When you press Enter, the new user is automatically assigned to the specified database entry. In addition, depending on the setup of the user type, Maconomy may create a number of access levels to which the new user and the assigned database entry are automatically granted access. For more information about this, see introduction to the User Types window and the description of the User Specific Access Level and Access List islands in that window.

You can create template users in this window by selecting the Template field. For more information about creating template users and the information that Maconomy copies from template users to new users, see the description of the Template field.

In the User Dialog Groups sub-tab of this window, you can assign any number of groups to the user. Access groups determine the windows and functions that are available to the user. If you installed the Portal, assigning a group to a user also causes that user to become member of the Portal role that belongs to the group in question, thus granting the user access to the menu items and components that you assigned to the relevant role.

The groups also determine which window layouts the user sees when opening windows. You maintain access groups in the Groups window. If you grant access to more than one group to a user, he or she has access to all of the combined functions and rights of the groups. If a user is not assigned to any groups, he or she cannot open any windows, although he or she can log in.

The order in which you specify the groups in the User Dialog Groups sub-tab is important if you use different window layouts. When a user opens a window, Maconomy checks whether a layout has been specified for the window in question in the group at the top of the sub-tab. If so, Maconomy uses the layout in question. If no layout has been specified in the top group, Maconomy checks whether a layout has been specified in the second group in the sub-tab, and so on. If no layouts have been specified in any of the groups, Maconomy uses the standard layout for the window.

Note that for some windows, read access implies full access (that is, to create, update, and delete information). These windows are typically windows from which you can print documents-where the printout represents an action. These windows include all Delete windows; the Interest Selection, Reminder Selection, Approve Interest Selection, and Approve Reminder Selection windows in the Accounts Receivable module; the Payment Selection and Change Payment Selection by Vendor windows in the Banking module; the Print Picking List and Print Returns List window in the Sales Orders module; the Item Purchase Selection window in the Purchase module; and the Change Price Lists window in the Inventory module. To prevent users in a group from having access to the full functionality of these windows, you must ensure that the group has no access at all to the windows.

If the System Information window specifies that a password is required to gain access, Maconomy automatically gives new users a password whose contents you define in the Access Information window. You can then change this password in the Change Password window. If a password is not required, users are not given a password here.

Maconomy is delivered with one user, Administrator, who has access to all windows and all functions. In addition, Maconomy automatically assigns the Administrator user to all of the groups that you created in the Groups window. You cannot delete the Administrator user, and you cannot remove or add groups in the sub-tab of the Administrator's information card. You can designate any user as an administrator by selecting the Administrator field. When you select this field, that user is granted the same rights as the special Administrator user. However, you can deselect the Administrator field at any time to make the user a "normal" user again.

For auditing purposes, it is strongly recommended that you print and file user information every time that you change it in this window. You can use the Print This function in the File menu.