Users and Groups

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

Users are key to controlling what functionality is available to and how things are carried out by each user as an individual. Users are registered with ArcGIS Workflow Manager for Desktop and associated with a specific Windows login so they can be authenticated automatically. They are used for the following:

• Allowing/Denying access to the application
• Retrieving database connection information
• Controlling access to specific application functionality
• User-stamping History
• Assigning work to individuals

You can associate multiple groups with each user. This allows you to associate privileges (which are assigned to groups) with users by combining groups. The following diagram shows how the model allows users to be associated with different sets of privileges by associating them with groups:

Users and privileges are linked together through User Groups in Workflow Manager.

See the privileges topic for information about the types of privileges available in the Workflow Manager System.

Configuring users and groups

Working with users

The Workflow Manager system authenticates who can access the system through their user name. These users are Windows login users and are managed through the Administrator application.

Steps:

1. Open the Administrator manager and connect to your Workflow Manager database.
2. In the Workflow Manager Configuration Manager, navigate to the Users folder under Security.

   The Users list should show all the currently configured users. If no users are configured, the list will be blank.

3. Right-click the Users folder and click Add or right-click an existing user and click Edit.

   The User Properties dialog box appears.

4. Enter the required information (denoted with a *) along with any other information you wish to input.

   Only the fields with * are required for entering a user into the Workflow Manager System.

5. Check the Administrator Access check box for users whom you want to give permissions to to make changes to your Workflow Manager configuration elements.

   This is an added level of protection to your database, ensuring that only users with this privilege can access the database from the Configuration Manager. All your Workflow Manager users can still access the repository from the Client Application to manage and execute their jobs.

   Note:

   This only applies to one repository, so this setting might vary across your numerous repositories.

6. Click the Groups tab.
7. To add one or more groups, click Add.
8. Select the group(s) you want to add from the list shown.

   Users are linked to application privileges through the groups they belong to.

9. Click OK.
10. Click OK again to close the User Properties dialog box and save changes.

Working with groups

User groups are used to categorize users for many reasons—specifically to assign privileges or roles, but also to be able to classify the users for the purposes of assigning work. You may wish to assign a current job or step to a group instead of an individual, so it can be carried out by anybody in that group. For example, a Quality Assurance step should probably be assigned to the QA/QC group ahead of time. Once that step is reached, users within this group can assign the step to themselves and carry out the task.

To Add or Edit a User Group

You can manage the groups by adding or editing the properties of existing groups within your Workflow Manager system.

Steps:

1. Open the Configuration Manager and connect to your Workflow Manager database.
2. In the Workflow Manager Configuration Manager, navigate to the Groups folder under Security.

   The User Groups list shows all the currently configured groups. If no groups are configured, the list will be blank.

3. Right-click the Groups folder and click Add or right-click an existing group and click Edit.

   The Group Properties dialog box appears.

4. Enter the required information, along with any other information you want to input.
5. Click OK to save changes.

To Add users or assign privileges to the group

Privileges control what you want to allow certain groups and users to do in the Workflow Manager application. These privileges are assigned to groups via that administrator.

Steps:

1. On the Group Properties dialog box, navigate to the Users or Privileges tab.
2. Click Add.
3. Select the element you want to associate with the group.
4. Click OK.
5. Click OK again to close the Group Properties dialog box.

Importing users and groups from an Active Directory

Import users and groups from the active directory to synchronize the users within the Workflow Manager system and your organization. For example, if a new employee is added to your domain or an existing employee leaves, you can run the Import tool to update the list of users that can access the Workflow Manager application.

Importing users and groups from the active directory will create any new items that do not currently exist, update the attributes (such as Name, Phone Number, Description) of any items that do exist, and remove any items that no longer exist in the active directory. As well, the group memberships for each user will be maintained. If your system is set up to authenticate against domains, it will only remove users that existed in the current domain. In addition, groups will not be removed when authenticating against domains.

Steps:

The groups and users should already exist within your organization's domain active directory. In this scenario WMXUsers and WMXGroups are all AD groups. Andy, Charlotte and Jason are all active directory users. Within the active directory, membership is configured as shown in the diagram (Technicians is a member of WMXGroups, Andy is a member of both WMXUsers and Technicians, etc). When importing into Workflow Manager, the user would enter WMXUsers and WMXGroups into the two text boxes in the dialog. After the import is complete, Technicians and Managers will have been created as Workflow Manager groups, and Andy, Charlotte, and Jason will have been created as Workflow Manager users. The Workflow Manager group membership will be created based on the AD group membership, so in this case, the Andy and Jason Workflow Manager users would belong to the Technicians Workflow Manager groups, and Charlotte would belong to the Manager group.

1. In the Workflow Manager Configuration Manager, click Settings > Import/Export > Import Active Directory Configuration menu.

   The Import users/groups dialog box appears.

2. Enter the required information.
   1. Specify the domain to import from.
   2. Specify a user name and password if the current user is not on the domain.
   3. Enter the active directory user group and group that you want to import.

      These must already exist on your domain.

3. Click Import.

   A message with a summary of the users and groups that were imported appears.

4. Click OK to close the message.
5. Navigate to the users container for verification.

   The list shows the new users that were imported.