Language: English
This article explains how ActivityInfo determines a user’s right to view or change Databases.
Database administrators
When you add a Database, ActivityInfo adds you to the Database as a user with the "Administrator" Role. Like every other user, you appear in the list of users in the User management section.
What a user can do in a Database depends only on their Role. For example:
- To rename a Database or change its settings, a user needs the "Edit database settings, forms, folders and reports" permission for the entire Database.
- To delete a Database, a user needs the "Delete the database, forms, folders and reports" permission for the entire Database.
If you do not invite any users, or make any Forms public, then you are the only person who can access the Database.
Database owners
Where a Database has a Database owner, this is usually the user who added the Database. The Database owner has a special status outside of the Role system:
- The Database owner can view and change all elements of the Database.
- The Database owner does not appear in the list of users, and cannot be assigned a Role.
- The Database owner cannot leave the Database.
How to give up ownership of a Database
If you are the Database owner, you can give up ownership and become a user with a Role instead. For example, you might do this to restrict your own access to personal data, or before you leave your organization.
- Make sure that someone will still be able to manage users and Roles. For example, choose the "Administrator" Role for yourself in step 6, or check that another user has this Role.
- On the Database List page, click on the Database.
- Click on "Database settings" and then on "User management".
- Click on "Add user", type your own email address, and click on "Continue".
- ActivityInfo displays the warning "You are the owner of this database. Adding yourself with a role removes your ownership, and you will have only the permissions of that role."
- Choose the Role that you want to hold, and click on "Send invite".
The Database no longer has a Database owner, and you appear in the list of users with the Role you chose. ActivityInfo does not send you an invitation email. Only the Database owner can do this: other users cannot add the Database owner as a user.
Other ways a Database loses its owner
ActivityInfo also removes the Database owner in the following cases:
- ActivityInfo support removes the Database owner from their billing account. The user is removed as the owner of every Database they own, and loses access to these Databases.
- ActivityInfo support or sales staff transfer the Database to another billing account.
In both cases, ActivityInfo makes sure that the Database has an "Administrator" Role, but the former owner is not added to the Database as a user. To keep your access to a Database, give up ownership and choose a Role for yourself before you ask for either change.
Billing account owners
Each Database belongs to a billing account. Users who own a billing account can do the following:
- Add Databases to the billing account and its sub-accounts. When you can add Databases to more than one billing account, the "Add database" page shows a "Billing account" field.
- Recover a deleted Database that belonged to the billing account, from the list of deleted Databases in the billing account settings.
- Choose a subscription when a Database of the billing account is suspended. Other users of a suspended Database see a message asking them to contact a Database administrator.
Owning a billing account does not give access to the Forms and Records of its Databases. To view or change a Database, a billing account owner must be a user of that Database, with a Role.
Role assignment
A Role is a certain combination of Grants and Parameters that you assign to a specific group of users. Roles are therefore the main way by which you control what actions you permit users to perform in your database.
In ActivityInfo, the permission for assigning roles to other users lies with users whose Role includes the "Manage users" permission, such as administrators. These individuals are usually responsible for managing users, roles, permissions, and other administrative tasks within the Database.
Specifically, users with administrative roles can perform the following actions related to role assignment:
- Adding Roles: They can create new roles within the Database, defining the combination of grants and parameters that determine the permissions for each role.
- Editing Roles: they can modify existing roles, adjusting their permissions, parameters, or other settings as needed.
- Assigning Roles to Users: They can assign roles to individual users or groups of users, determining the actions those users are permitted to take within the Database.
- Managing Users: This includes tasks such as adding new users to the Database, changing user roles, and revoking the access of users when necessary.
- Overriding Role Permissions: In some cases, they may need to override the permissions granted by a role for specific users or resources, granting additional permissions as needed.
Which Roles a user can assign to others depends on the user's own Role. For each Role with the "Manage users" permission, you choose whether its users can assign any Role, or only the Roles you check. For more information, see Understanding the Manage users permission.
Grants to the user
You can grant permissions to users for specific resources, such as forms, folders, or reports, through role assignments. In ActivityInfo, grants to users are typically managed by administrators. Grants specify the permissions granted to a user for accessing various resources within the Database. These permissions include operations like viewing, adding, editing, or deleting records, as well as managing users and Forms.
Locks
In ActivityInfo, locks are managed by administrators or users with equivalent permissions to restrict access to specific resources within the Database, preventing changes to critical data or configurations. With this level of permission, you can apply locks to resources such as Forms, Folders, or Databases. Lock management allows you to add, remove, or modify locks as needed, adjusting access control settings based on changing requirements or organizational policies. In certain cases, you may need to override Locks for specific users or situations, temporarily lifting a Lock.
For more information, see Understanding locks.
Public visibility
When you make a form public, then all users can view the form and all of its records, even without logging in.
Reference fields
Reference fields in a Form are used to establish relationships between different records or datasets within a Database. When adding a reference field to a form in ActivityInfo, it allows users to link records in one form to records in another form. However, it's important to note that simply adding a reference field to a form does not automatically grant permission for an editor of that form to view the related form.
In other words, while a user may have permissions to edit the form where the Reference field is added, they may not automatically have permissions to view or edit the related form linked through the Reference field. Permissions for viewing or editing related Forms need to be explicitly granted to users by administrators or users with appropriate privileges.
ActivityInfo support staff
As a matter of policy, the ActivityInfo support has no access to your Database. If you ask for our help to resolve a technical problem, or ask for advice in designing your Forms, a member of the support team may “claim” support access to your Database.
The users whose Role includes the "Security contact" permission, and the Database owner if the Database has one, are notified via email when this happens. The support team member is added to the Database in the “support” role, just like any other user. This event is visible in the audit log.
You can further restrict the support role to limit what our support staff can view or change by changing the permissions assigned to the “Support” role. When the issue is resolved, the support team member leaves your Database.
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