Limited Access - Overview

What is Limited Access?

Limited access is a security mechanism permitting details about certain projects, employees, task groups and employee groups to be explicitly open to (or hidden from) VPs, project managers, team leaders and empowered employees who have access to the Administrative areas of the software. Applying limited access effectively filters information a manager can access to only those projects, employees, etc., that the manager is specifically permitted to view.

 

NOTE: Throughout the documentation describing Limited Access, the word 'manager' is frequently used as a generic term to describe all users who have access to the Administrative areas of the software. In this sense, manager is not meant to indicate a job description or position.

 

Do you require Limited Access?

Limited Access is important for those companies wanting to restrict information visibility between departments, business units, VPs, managers, etc. Limited Access is also very helpful in reducing the amount of information available to a manager. With limited access applied, managers do not have to hunt through hundreds of projects just to locate the ones that relate to them.

 

It is important to recall that the Security Group assigned to each user is the means used to completely restrict access to specific views and tools in the software. Using access to projects as an example, if you do not want a user to have access to any project information, then that is accomplished using the appropriate Security Group. Limited Access is important if you want a manager to have access to some projects - but not all. The same limited access security can be applied to Task Groups, Employee and Employee Group information.

 

With limited access applied, again using projects as an example, managers presented with a list of projects when running reports, when creating assignments, etc., only see the projects they are permitted to view. In contrast, Limited Access is not required if it is okay that managers having access to projects, employees, task groups and employee groups are able to see and report on all these items. There are some areas of the software where limited access to projects, employees, etc., is not enforced or not fully enforced for secondary levels of information. These exceptions are described in another topic.

 

In the technical sense, limited access cannot be enabled or disabled. Limited access is always 'on'. The true differentiation is whether you actively manage limited access or not.

• If you want all managers to have access to all items, then you do not need to configure and manage limited access. The software’s default settings mean you only need to apply a Security Group to each user and the remaining topics in this section of the help files can be disregarded.

• If you prefer to limit access to one or more projects, employees, etc., then you must first determine which configuration best suites your situation, then prepare and roll out limited access. The remaining topics in this section detail these efforts. Next: Which Limited Access configuration option to select?

 

Tip: The topics in this section first provide an overview of how each Limited Access configuration works and the benefits of each. This overview is followed by detailed instructions on setting up and using each option. Because both set of detailed instructions are similarly structured, these can seem repetitive or perhaps confusing. We suggest having the software on hand when reading the instructions.