Topics Map > Users Tab

KB User's Guide - Users Tab - User Access Groups and Limited Access Groups

This document describes how to set up and use User Access Groups and Limited Access Groups.

KB Administrators can create User Access Groups to provide a further level of specificity in determining access to documents.

  • User Access Groups can be applied at the document level to restrict read and/or write access to a specified subset of users. Members in User Access Groups can therefore view more documents internally than non-members.
  • Limited Access Groups can be applied at the topic level. This will severely restrict read access of Internal documents to a specified a subset of users of your choosing. Members of the Limited Access Group will only have access to/view documents associated with specific selected topic(s) and nothing else. More to a point, members of a Limited Access group will not have read access to child topic(s) unless specifically selected subsequently viewing fewer documents internally.

All group settings, including membership, can be modified at any time.

User Access Groups

To Create a new User Access Groups:

  1. Click on Users Tab.

  2. Click on User Access Groups link on the left navigation bar.

  3. In the Add a user access group table, enter a User Group Name and User Group Description (optional), then click the Add button. This will add your new User Access Group to the list of previously defined groups.

  4. Find your new User Access Group and click the Members button. This will take you to another screen where you can add intended users to the group(s) you have created.

  5. Check the Member check box next to the people you would like added to the group and click Update. Mouse-over highlighting helps you check/uncheck accurately.

To Edit an existing User Access Group:

  • To Change a Group Name:

    1. Enter a new Group name in the Group Name field.
    2. Click the Update button at the bottom of the page.
  • To Change a Group Name's Description:

    1. Enter a new Group description in the Group Description field.
    2. Click the Update button at the bottom of the page.
  • To Add or Remove Members:

    1. Click the Members button for the appropriate Group.
    2. Check or uncheck a box to add or remove a member. Mouse-over highlighting helps you check/uncheck accurately.
    3. Click Update button to save changes.
    4. If refreshing, you may click Select All or Deselect All to make it easier to clear the list.
  • To Deactivate or Activate a Group:

    1. Mark the Active checkbox as checked or unchecked depending on what is applicable.
    2. Click the Update button at the bottom of the page.

To use the User Access Groups:

  1. Near the bottom of a document creation or editing page, you will see sections for WriteAccess and ReadAccess with links to Show all WriteAccess groups and Show all ReadAccess groups. Clicking these links will expand the section to reveal check boxes for any User Access Groups defined for your site. If no User Access Groups are defined then "No user groups defined" will be displayed.

  2. Based on the content of the document, you may select to restrict read or write access for the document to one or more User Access Groups.

  3. If the document needs no particular user restriction, don't check any of the User Access Group check boxes.

Once a document is restricted, it is only accessible to users on its User Access Group, even within the KB Admin Tools environment. If a user is listed in the specified User Access Group, the document will display normally. If not, a message indicates that the document is restricted to a pre-defined list of users, and offers the option of contacting the document owner to gain access.

How to Apply User Access Groups

While in the document editor, select the User Access group you just defined and permit/restrict permissions to modify the content of the document.

Selecting a User Access Group for document Write-Access:

In the image below, the Owner group admins (circled) have permission to edit this document. Checking the box next to any WriteAccess groups will also be grant that User Access group permission to edit this document. The image below shows that the Network Technologists also have permission to edit this document.

The Write Access section of the document edit screen.

Use case: Network Technologists User Access Group - members of this group are content experts who may edit and publish a Network specifications and procedural documents.

Note: Other User Groups populated from Group Authorization Rules may appear in the WriteAccess section. See KB User's Guide - Users Tab - Group Authorization for more information. Hover your mouse over a User Access Group to see a tooltip displaying all users associated with that group. 

User Access Group Selected for Read-Access:

In the image below, the check box next to the "Network Technologist" User Access Group has been selected in the ReadAccess part of the document editor. Once a document is restricted to one or more ReadAccess groups, it is only accessible to users on those lists, even within the KB Admin Tools environment.

  • If a user is in the ReadAccess group, the document will display normally.
  • If a user is not, a message will display indicating that the document is restricted to a pre-defined User Access Group and offers the option of contacting the document owner to gain access.environment.

The Read access section of the document edit screen.

Use case: Network Technologists User Access Group - members of this group are the only ones who should have access to firewall access policies and modification planning of said policies.

Note: Other User Groups populated from Group Authorization Rules may appear in the ReadAccess section. See KB User's Guide - Users Tab - Group Authorization for more information. Hover your mouse over a User Access Group to see a tooltip displaying all users associated with that group. 

User Access Group Selected for Topic Admin:

You may designate a User Access group as an Admin Group in a specific topic. For more information about topics, please see KB User's Guide - Topics Tab - Adding, Editing, and Deleting Topics. In the image below, the Grad School User Access Group has been provisioned rights to publish documents associated with the Cruciferous topic, and that topic alone (e.g. Admin group permissions do not include subtopics).You may grant a User Access group publish rights without having to grant them full publish rights for all documents.

The Level 5 Topics page. The Admin group field is circled in red.

Use case: Grad School User Access Group - members of this group are trained student employees, but do not have publish rights. Topic Admin group gives them conditional publish rights only.

Limited Access Groups

To Create a new Limited Access Groups:

  1. Click on Users Tab.

  2. Click on Limited Access Groups link on the left navigation bar.

  3. In the Add a limited access group table enter a name in the Group Name field and a description in the Group Description field (optional), then click the Add button. This will add your new Limited User Access Group to the list of previously defined groups.

  4. Find your new Limited Access Group and click the Members button. This will take you to another screen where you can add intended users to the group(s) you have created.

  5. Check the Member check box next to the people you would like added to the group. Mouse-over highlighting helps you check/uncheck accurately. When you have selected all the desired members, click Update.

  6. Click on the Topic-based access button and select the topics and sub topics to which this Limited Access Group should have read-access on your internal site. Please know this supersedes all other access rights. Members of this group will only be able to view the documents associated with selected Topic(s) and nothing else, and they will not have read access to child Topic(s) unless specifically selected.

To Edit an existing Limited User Access Group:

  • To Change a Limited Access Group Name:

    1. Modify the data in the Group Name field.
    2. Click the Update button at the bottom of the page.
  • To Change a Limited Access Group Description:

    1. Modify the data in the Group Description field.
    2. Click the Update button at the bottom of the page.
  • To Add or Remove Members:

    1. Click the Members button for the appropriate Group.
    2. Check or uncheck a box to add or remove a member. Mouse-over highlighting helps you check/uncheck accurately.
    3. Click Update button to save changes.
    4. If refreshing, you may click Select All or Deselect All to make it easier to clear the list.
  • To Modify Doc Access

    1. Click the Topic-based access button.
    2. You site's topic tree will appear; update the selected topics by (un)checking boxes as necessary.
    3. Click the Update button to save changes.
  • To Activate/Deactivate a Group:

    1. Mark the Active checkbox as checked or unchecked depending on what is applicable.
    2. Click the Update button at the bottom of the page.

How to Assign Topics to Your Defined Limited Access Group:

  1. Once a Limited Access Group has been created, you will need to ensure that the appropriate topic(s) are checked.

    The image below shows the "karoton" Limited Access Group in our Demo KB. After selecting the appropriate topics and sub-topics, click the Update button highlighted in red.

    The Limited Access Groups page.

  2. You may assign topics to individual documents from the document edit screen, or use the Batch Topic Assignment tool (which can be found under the Topics tab > Batch Topic Assignment Tool link.

Limited User Access restriction should not be used for documents that are meant for public consumption. It works with documents published to internal KB sites only. The topics drop down menu, topics side module, and topics tree will show only those topics, and "Most Recently Updated Documents" and "Top Documents of the Week" modules will be updated to only display docs they are allowed to view. When an associated Limited Access Group is deleted, the restriction on the document will cease to exist.

Limited Access Group: Members of this group:

Once you have defined a Limited Access group, that group will only see documents within the topics and subtopics in your Internal KB site that you have specified.

Use case: Members of the Limited Access Group are:

  • are subject matter experts but do not need access to all your internal documents because they work in another department.
  • are working with your group on a project with a very specific timeline needing only limited access.
  • are vendors, collaborators, contractors who do not need to access sensitive data in your Internal KB site.

If you are not finding what you need, please email the KB Team for a consult.



Keywordskb knowledge base user guide users limited access groups add create new list readaccess writeaccess view document restrictions controls visible visibility hide internal members select deselect update reset save as .csv .CSV   Doc ID6691
OwnerLeah S.GroupKB User's Guide
Created2007-11-08 19:00:00Updated2024-03-05 16:31:59
SitesKB User's Guide
Feedback  1   1