Users And Login

If your application is a multi-user application and you want to control access of these users to the application then you have to do the following:

1. When configuring the application make sure that it has the access level that users will be working at (see the “Access Level” section). It can be the predefined Guest access level or, more likely, you will configure the special access level for this. Do not let users work at the Administrator access level, as this predefined access level should only be used by the system administrator(s).
2. Make sure that the default visual perspective for the Administrator access level includes the menu item of the Create Object type that allows creating instances of the predefined RegularUser business object (AwareIM includes such an item by default) – see the “Setting Menu Item Properties” section and How to create records.
3. Make sure that the default visual perspective for the user access level does not allow creating the RegularUser business object, but does include the menu item of the Change Login Details type that allows users to change their initial login name and password.
4. Once the application has been configured and published the system administrator has to log in the operation mode using the administrator password (see the Full User Login, Interactive entry in the “Login” section). The administrator password is the same password as the one used to log into the Configuration Tool (see also 0850_config_tool_passwords).
5. Once inside the Operation Mode the system administrator has to create instances of the RegularUser object – one instance per user. When creating instances of the RegularUser object the system administrator has to specify values for the following attributes - login name, password and access level. Thus the new user of the system will be assigned the initial login name, the initial password and a particular access level.
6. Users can now log into the system using the assigned login names and password and then change these initial values using the menu item of the Change Login Details type. The users should not be able to change the value of access level assigned by the system administrator.

If you want to assign additional attributes to the system users (for example, their personal details) you can add attributes to the RegularUser object or create a different business object representing the user. In the latter case you must add this business object to the predefined SystemUsers business object group (see the “Adding/Editing Business Object Groups” section). This will make sure that the new business object will have certain predefined attributes required by the system such as the login name, password and access level. All other steps should be the same – the only difference is that instead of creating instances of the RegularUser object you will be creating instances of your custom user object.

Most users have to log into the application in the operation mode before they can start using it (this includes system administrators as well). The only exception is “guest” users that can work with the system without having to log in (“guest users”, however, are heavily restricted in what they can do with the system). The standard way of logging into the system, which should be used by most users, is described in the table of “Simple User Login, Default”. System administrators can also use other entry points – all different ways of logging into the system are described in the “Login” section.

The initial password for users of the application can be set up by the system administrator – see 0810_setup_users. Once users log in using the credentials created by the system administrator, they can change these credentials provided that a menu item of the Change Login Details type has been configured for them.

AwareIM creates one default user of the Configuration Tool during installation. This user has the predefined login name “admin” and the predefined password “password”. Thus the configurator can log into the Configuration Tool using the credentials of the default user. The default password should be changed immediately once inside the Configuration Tool using the “Change Administrator Password” command.

If you want to create additional users of the Configuration Tool you have to do the following:

1. Log into the system in the Operation Mode using the credentials of the default user (you do not have to configure anything for this – use the default configuration provided by AwareIM after the installation). You can log in directly from the Configuration Tool – see the “Logging into the Operation Mode” section.
2. Use Create Object menu item in the Standard folder to create instances of the RegularUser business object – one instance per configurator. When creating the instances you have to set the values for the following attributes – login name, password and access level. Set the login name and assign initial value to the password attribute (the password can be changed later by the configurators). Make sure that access level is set to Administrator.
3. The configurators can now log into the Configuration Tool using the specified credentials.

AwareIM creates one default user of the Configuration Tool during installation. This user has the predefined login name “admin” and the predefined password “password”. Thus the configurator can log into the Configuration Tool using the credentials of the default user. The default password should be changed immediately once inside the Configuration Tool using the “Change Administrator Password” command.

If you make your application widely available over the Internet you may want to allow non-registered users to access the application too, i.e. allow access to those users who do not have to login. Such users can enter the system using the URL described in the “Guest Entry” section. All users who enter the system via this URL are automatically assigned “Guest” access level (see predefined access levels). By default this access level is very heavily restricted – you may want to relax these restrictions a little bit to allow guest users certain operations with the system. You may also want to include the menu items of the Login and Register User types into the visual perspective for the Guest access level to allow “guest users” to login or self-register – see the “Setting Menu Item Properties” section.

Make sure that you include menu item of the Register User type into the visual perspective for the Guest access level – see How to allow non-registered users to access the system. You can also define a special form in the business object that represents a user, which will be used for this occasion – see the “Defining Business Object Forms” section, 0810_setup_users.