Administering Users › User Groups

User Groups

User groups can have any number of users, and you can assign users to any number of groups. User groups are the basis for access control and are nonhierarchical, which means the access available to one group does not imply access for any other. You can use user groups with notifications and approvals. For example, a user can belong to the Development group in Project A and the Testing group in Project B.

You can use user groups in the following areas:

Access control

Grants user groups permission to perform a particular action on an object. For example, specific users might be in a group named Developer, which has permission to check out and check in items, delete versions, and promote packages.

Notifications

Notifies specific users or all members of one or more user groups of certain events in the lifecycle. Notifications can be sent manually or automatically. For example, a notify process can alert the QA user group that a package has successfully been promoted from Development to QA.

Approvals

Specifies that certain users or user groups must give their approval before a package can progress from one state to another through the lifecycle.

CA Harvest SCM has the following predefined user groups with special meaning:

Public—All users implicitly belong to the Public group. If the Public group is added to the access list of a method, everyone can execute that method.

Administrator—Any user belonging to an Administrator group is exempt from security checks. As a security measure, only members of the Administrator group can grant Administrator rights to other users.

Important! Take extreme care to verify that at least one member of the Administrator group always exists.

Note: You can define other groups.

Create a User Group

The User Group Properties dialog lets you create and define CA Harvest SCM user groups.

Follow these steps:

1. Click the User Groups tab of the Administrator application.
2. Right-click the User Groups folder, and select New User Group from the shortcut menu.

   The User Group Properties dialog appears.

3. Name the user group. User group names must be unique in a CA Harvest SCM installation.
4. (External Authentication only) Select External Authentication to specify external authentication for the user group; otherwise, the user group is created as internal authentication.

   Note: To create an external user group, it must exist in the external authentication server.

5. Click the Users tab.

   The Users list shows the names of users who belong to this user group. For a new group, the list is empty.

6. Click Add.

   The Select Users for User Group dialog appears.

7. Select the user you want to add, and click OK.

   The user name appears in the list.

8. (Optional) Select the user you want to remove, and click Remove.

   The user name is removed from the list.

9. Click OK.

   The user group is created and appears in the User Groups tab.

Add a User to a User Group

When adding users to a new user group, the Select Users for User Group dialog lets you locate and select users from a list. The Select Users for User Group dialog is invoked from the User Groups Properties dialog.

When the Select Users for User Group dialog initially displays, the From User Group(s) field lists all user groups and the Select User(s) list is empty. After you search for users, the Select User(s) list shows the results and you can return the users to the calling dialog.

You can search for users to populate the Select User(s) list in the following ways:

• To locate the users that belong to a specific user group, select the user group and click Find. This lists the users that belong to that group in the Select User(s) field.
• To locate all users in all user groups, select All User Groups in the From User Group(s) list and click Find. This action lists all users in all user groups in the Select User(s) field.

Note: If you have selected a user group but have not clicked Find, the Selected User(s) list still shows the previous selection.

Select one or more users and click OK to return the users to the calling dialog.

Follow these steps:

1. Click the User Groups tab of the Administrator application.
2. Expand the User Groups folder, right-click the user group to which you want to add a user, and select Properties from the shortcut menu.

   The User Group Properties dialog appears.

3. Click the Users tab.

   The users list shows the users that belong to the group.

4. Click Add.

   The Select Users for User Group dialog appears.

5. Select the user you want to add and click OK.

   Note: To return all users in the Select User(s) list to the calling dialog, click Select All and then click OK.

   The users list includes the user that you added to the group.

6. Click OK.

   The user is added to the user group.

Remove a User From a User Group

The User Group Properties dialog lets you remove a user from a user group.

Follow these steps:

1. Click the User Groups tab of the Administrator application.
2. Expand the User Groups folder, right-click the user group to which you want to remove a user, and select Properties from the shortcut menu.

   The User Group Properties dialog appears.

3. Click the Users tab.

   The tab lists the users that belong to the user group.

4. Select the user you want to remove and click Remove.

   The users list does not include the user that you removed from the group.

5. Click OK.

   The user is removed from the user group.

Delete a User Group

You can delete user groups. Delete User group is an auditable event.

Important! Use extreme caution when you delete user groups because access-related problems can occur.

Follow these steps:

1. Click the User Groups tab of the Administrator application.
2. Right-click the user group you want to delete, and select Delete from the shortcut menu.

   A confirmation dialog appears.

3. Verify that it is the user group that you want to delete, and click Yes.

   The user group is deleted.