Workgroup Access

Workgroups are defined by Administrators. A workgroup Administrator can add members to the workgroup(s) of which they are an Administrator but cannot create a new workgroup. Records can be restricted to Ownership by a workgroup, and may be visible only to members of that workgroup or editable only by the workgroup members but visible to all. Ownership of records and limitation of editing or viewing rights can be applied at the Workgroup level, that is, limiting the ability to change or even see records to the members of that Workgroup. This is discouraged for resources of a generic nature, since it inhibits correction and enhancement of data.

Record Access

Access to a record is determined by:

  • Ownership. This determines who can edit a record. The shared information may only be edited by members of that workgroup.
  • View Permissions. This determines who outside the Owner can view a record (i.e. record visibility).

You can set the Ownership and visibility of a record individually. The default is all database users are Owners (can edit) and any logged in user can view.

Records can only be owned by a single workgroup. Once a record is marked as owned by a workgroup, only members of that workgroup can change its Ownership and visibility. A user can change Ownership for an individual record to selected users if:

  • they are the Owner
  • they are an Administrator of the workgroup that owns it
  • if it is owned by everyone; by default, records are 'owned' by any logged in user of the workgroup.

Ownership and view permissions should only be restricted for records which are private to a workgroup.

Setting Access

Ownership of a record (who can edit the record) and visibility of a record (who can view the record) is set initially when the record is created (see Keyboard - Add Record).

You can edit this access for a particular record from the Edit Record page:

To change record Ownership/visibility for multiple records, search and select one or more records from the Search Results Pane and select Shared | Ownership/Visibility, and complete the Change Record Access dialog:

Settings

Ownership (Record is editable by) can be set to:

  • Shared. Anybody (No Restriction). By default, all new records are set to Shared Ownership, in the spirit of collaborative databases, and all shared information can be edited by any Heurist user. For personal databases select your name, to restrict access to yourself.
  • You. You are the only person who can edit the record.
  • Database Owners. Anyone who is a member of the Database Owners group can edit the record.
  • Other Workgroups. Anyone who is a member of the workgroup can edit the record. In addition, records may be marked as Hidden (see below), in which case all view or edit permissions to the record can be restricted to a Workgroup by a member of that Workgroup.

Viewability (Record is viewable by) can be set to:

  • Hidden. (Only members of this group can view the record.) Records are only visible to workgroup members.
  • Viewable. (Any logged-in user can view the record.) Any (logged-in) user, regardless of workgroup, can view the record. By default, all new records are set to Viewable by any Heurist user.
  • Pending. (Flagged for external publication, any logged-in user.) This provides the same viewability as Viewable above, but 'flags' that the record is not available for Public viewing. For instance, if you area making edits to a record and haven't reviewed these yet. (Public records automatically revert to Pending whenever they are edited.)
  • Public. (Published - written automatically to external views.) The record (other than fields marked 'Restricted') can be published for Public (external to Heurist) viewing.

Any records you want others to see can be made Viewable. They will not be editable by anyone who is not part of the Owner group. You can set the default for new records to Hidden or Viewable.

To hide information from other users, set Ownership of all records to yourself, or to the database Owners group, and set visibility outside group to Hidden.

Example: Research assistant access. If you want to give someone write access to part of your database, create a new workgroup, make them a member, and make the group the Owner of the set of records you want them to be able to edit. They can view (unless records are set to Hidden), but will not be able to edit, records owned by groups of which they are not a member.

Note. The Discussion section of a visible record is not governed by record Ownership, since individual users own their own comments. So anyone can add comments. However, if the record is hidden non-members of the workgroup will not have access to the discussion section. The Rich Text section of a visible record is not governed by record Ownership, since individual users can add text blocks which they own. However, if the record is hidden non-members of the workgroup will not have access to the text section.

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