Use Cases

Once you add a user to a Security Group, their experience in netFORUM and how they may interact with the system will change, sometimes dramatically depending upon how you have your Security Groups set-up. Below are two use cases and sample descriptions of how accounts may work when used in conjunction with two baseline Security Groups, Accounting and Customer Service.

Note: This section is to be used for learning and demonstration purposes only. Abila makes no guarantee that your Security Groups will work exactly the same since Security Groups may be modified.

Use Case #1 – Accounting Security Group

As noted in the Baseline Security Groups section, the Accounting Security Group is used to grant the Accounting staff access to financial information. This group has access to the CRM, Accounting, Exhibits, Reports, and Administration modules. However, notice in the figure below, that the functionality with the CRM module is somewhat limited for this Security Group.

Because the Accounting Security Group is designed to focus on financials only, the options in CRM are limited in that this group is not enabled to add individuals or organizations, for example. Nor are they enabled to perform Set Up functions. Further, the Accounting Security Group Actions Menu also limits this group to financials as observed by the next figures.

For example, the group can perform all invoice associated items such as cancellations and write-offs but cannot process fulfillments.

Membership and Subscription Renewals can be conducted but not drops or status changes.

As expected, all functionality within the Accounting module itself is enabled for this Security Group. For more complete information on what is available for this Security Group, you may look at the modules themselves within Security Group Setup or add a new member and view the set-up yourself before making massive changes to your organization (recommended).

Use Case #2 – Customer Service Security Group (Modified)

A Customer Service Security Group has been created that can add and edit records, add and edit historical activity, find registrants and events, as well as set-up CRM demographics. The intent of the Customer Service Group is to be able to answer the phone and find out information without having to conduct a lot of the processing or financial work. As a result, some of the following screens are available for a baseline Customer Service Group.

This figure shows the Customer Service Group CRM module. This group can add individuals and organizations as well as search for them but, as noted, Go Shopping and Add a Payment are disabled.

The Events, Awards, Certification, and Exhibits modules are very similar for the Customer Service Group, shown in this figure.

Members of this group may search for an Event, Session, or Registrant to relay this information to customers (over the phone, for example) but they may not add an event.

Finally, if you recall in the section Editing Module Access within a Security Group, this baseline group was modified slightly in that we wanted Customer Service Reps to be able to add Web Site Articles during downtime but not to actually be able to modify the Web Site which is your Web Master’s job. As a result, this group now has the ability to do that as well. Find, List and Add are available but the Web Site Wizard and the Web Site Editor are still disabled. This demonstrates the power available in Security Groups.

For more complete information on what is available for this Security Group, you may look at the modules themselves within Security Group Setup or add a new member and view the set-up yourself before making massive changes to your organization (recommended).

Note: Remember to contact your Customer Support representative for training and implementation of Security Groups.