Defining Users

A user is a person that is allowed to log in to the company. Each user can have a username, password, and privileges setup for them.

Default Usernames:
Developer - This username is for developers and is a member of the Developers group. This user will be used by SherWare support if they ever need to access your data. You can delete this user if you feel it is necessary.
Administrator - This username is for administrators, and is a member of the Administrators group. The default username and password for the Administrator is "admin". It is the same for both. We recommend changing the password once you have the software installed so that your program is more secure.

You will have to be logged into the company as a user that has either the Administrator or Developer privilege in order to modify other users.

User Information Tab
This tab simply defines the username that will be used to logon.

Username: The username that will be used to login to the company for this user.

Fullname: The full name of the person that this login was created for. This is only a reference. It will help your network admin recognize who this user is setup for.

Description: A description for this user that will be helpful to you.

Account Disabled
If this box is checked, the user cannot log on. This feature is used mostly for template accounts. It can also be used to temporarily disable an account without deleting it. For example, if a user goes on vacation and will not need to access the system remotely, you might want to disable their account while they are gone.

Password Tab
The password tab allows you to create or change a password for the account and configure a number of password-related properties.

Auto logon (No password)
If you do not want to be asked for a password when opening the software, create a user with the same name as your Windows username and do not check the password required box. SherWare will recognize the windows user and will log in automatically. Note: Your Windows name must be one word in order for this to work. If a space is present within your Windows username it will not autologon.
You can also use the "Enable/Disable Login" feature found under the Special Utilities menu do disable the logon.

Set Password...
This option presents a dialog that permits you to change the existing password, if any. If the account has a password set, the checkbox is checked. Otherwise the checkbox is cleared.

User Cannot Change Password
If checked, the system will not allow the user to change their password. This is useful if several people share a common user name, or if the administrator wants to keep total control of all passwords.

Autologon Password Required
If checked, a password is required when the user logs on. If unchecked, no password is required.

For accounts with high privileges, such as Developer or Administrator, this option should be checked in order to provide an additional level of security.

Password Required
When changing the password interactively via the Change Password dialog, you must enter a password if this box is checked. Otherwise an empty password is OK. If a password is required for the user, then you have the option of setting a number of other password-related properties.

Minimum Length
Specifies the minimum password length that will be accepted by login functions for this user.

Must Change Every (n) days
A password can be set to expire after a preset number of days. Once the specified number of days has passed, the user must change their password in order to login. Once the password has expired, the user is still allowed to login the number of times specified in the Grace Logins field.

To create a temporary account that will only be available for a preset number of days, set the Must Change value to the desired number of days, and also check the "User cannot change password" box. In this case, once the number of days and grace logins have expired, the account will be disabled until an administrator resets it.

Grace Logins
This specifies the number of grace logins allowed for the user once their password has expired.

Must Change Password Next Logon
If this box is checked, the user must supply a new password after logging in the next time. This is useful for setting up new accounts. You can set them up with a generic password, and the logon dialog will ensure that each user changes it the first time they logon.

Group Memberships Tab

The Group Memberships tab allows you to choose which groups a user belongs to. The user will be assigned all the privileges associated with the selected groups.

When a user becomes a member of a group, the user inherits all the privileges of that group. The privileges of all member groups are added together to create to full privilege set for the user.

Privileges Tab

The Privileges tab works like the Group Memberships tab. Use this to assign individual privileges to users, above and beyond those granted by any assigned groups.

Privilege and Group Membership notes:
- A user belonging to the Administrator or Developer group or having Administrator or Developer Privileges will automatically have all privileges.
- Many groups and privileges appear as both a group and a privilege, and to remove it from someone requires getting rid of the privilege and removing them from the group.
- Many menu items can be considered to be part of several groups, so restricting access to them may require removing several privileges and eliminating several groups of which the user is a member.
- Read-only access only works when the Edit Mode requirement is turned on. When Edit Mode is on, a user who is not an administrator/developer won't be able to get rid of the Edit Mode for a screen, so they can't change any data. Edit mode is turned on in the Misc Preferences.

Preventing "Lockouts:"
You need to be careful not to delete all users, or all users that have Administrator privilege - and not to forget their passwords. If you do, you can become locked out of your application. If this occurs, the only way to gain access is to restore the appreg01.* table from a backup copy.