User Types Editor

User types are a very important concept in Projector. They define access rules, permissions, and notifications to groups of users - allowing you to make a change in one place and having it update many users at once. 

Each user has a primary type that is displayed in reports and on dashboards. In addition, you can specify additional types if they fulfill multiple purposes in your organization. For example, I might be primarily an administrator for the entire organization, but I might also be a project manager for our main office. In the screenshot below you can see that this person is primarily a Project Manager, but is also a Finance Manager. The permission sets are additive, so adding more types expands your permissions.

The final special thing about user types is that they can be applied on a cost center basis. In the screenshot above you can see that this user is the Finance Manager, but only for the Revcorp US cost center. This level of granularity and inheritance is invaluable to large organizations where someone may wear several hats across cost centers.

When you need to update someone's permissions, the first place your mind should turn is the User Type editor. You might tweak an existing type to expand or restrict permissions, give the user another type, or create an entirely new type.

As not every user is going to neatly fit into a type, you can perform line-item permission overrides for individual people through the User Editor.

This form is reached from the menu by choosing View | Administration. Go to the Users & Resources subsection and then User Types

Permissions and Settings

To make changes to user types you must have the global permission Users and Permissions set to Update.

You can override permissions on a line-item basis through the User Editor.

You can generate a list of your users, as well as their permissions, with a User Report.

You can distribute reports based on user type.

The dashboards tab is only editable if you have the Advanced Analytics module enabled.

Manage User Types

Manage your user types. Tick the Include Inactive checkbox to show inactive types. 

Add User Type

Click the Create New User Type button.

Edit User Type

Double click on an existing type.

Reorder User Types

Select any user type and use the up/down arrow buttons. This changes the order that they are displayed in dropdown lists.

Delete User Type

Right click a user type and choose Delete Type. You cannot delete a type that is currently assigned to someone. You can mark it inactive instead.

Inactivate User Type

Edit a user type and tick the Inactive checkbox. An inactive type cannot be assigned to users, but any existing users with this type will continue to have it. If you want to completely remove the type, you should run a User Report and filter on everyone with the type you wish to deactivate. Then reassign them.

User Type Editor

The user type editor is where you define permissions, notifications, and manage which users are assigned to this type. The first four tabs all have to do with permissions. This page does not go into defining all of the individual permissions. You can visit the following help pages to learn what each permission does. What this page will cover is how each tab is generally used.

• General Permissions
• Global Permissions
• Cost Center Permissions
• Notifications

The last tab, assigned users, has lots of built in functionality for adding, removing, and changing cost centers for individual users.

At the top of the dialog you specify the type name and whether the type is inactive. 

General Tab

General permissions are either on or off and govern access to a few major areas of Projector. Please see this page for a full explanation of each permission.

Global Permissions Tab

Global Permissions are used to control access to features which affect the entire system. They are divided into none, view and update. For an explanation of each line-item, see Global Permissions.

Cost Center Permissions Tab

Cost centers are used to model your company's hierarchy in a tree. Your cost center structure will depend on your organization's structure. Some companies may choose to model geographically, others by division, or some combination thereof. Cost Center Permissions are a way of granting access to users based on this hierarchy. For example, your company may be modeled into geographic offices. Jim will be given a cost center permission so that he can only approve time for resources in North America. For a full explanation of each cost center permission see Cost Center Permissions.

You may have noticed that in the screenshot below there is no way to pick a cost center. How are you supposed to specify that Jim has permission to make changes in North America if the editor doesn't let you pick North America? The trick is to look at the last tab in the editor, Assigned Users. Here is where you can define the cost center scope of this user type.

1. Tick the checkbox for each cost center permission this type should have
2. Go to the last tab in this section, Assigned Users, and apply the permissions to a specific cost center.

Notifications Tab

Tick which email notifications your users should receive. As with the cost centers tab just discussed, when the type is assigned you will specify which cost centers they receive emails from.

Assigned Users Tab

This tab shows you which users in your installation are assigned this type and allows you to add to and modify that list. Anyone displayed in bold is using this type as their Primary Type. Types that are shown in non-bolded text are Additional Types. A Primary Type cannot be removed, an Additional Type can.

Add User to Type

Click the Add Users button from the multi-select dropdown and find people you want to add.

Remove User from Type

Tick the checkbox next to each person you want to remove the type from. Then choose Remove Selected Users. If the checkbox is unavailable then it is because this is a Primary type. You'll first need to switch the user to a different type before removing the current one. You can either do this on individual user profiles through the User Editor or through the Set as Primary feature discussed below.

Set this Type as Primary

Tick the checkbox next to each resource you want to set the primary type for. Click Set as Primary from the multi-select dropdown box. The current type will become their primary type. Their previous primary type will in turn become an additional type.

Change Cost Center for Type

Use the dropdown list in the Cost Center column to determine which cost center and child cost centers this type applies to.

Dashboards Tab

Display up to five custom business intelligence tables and charts on a user's My Home Page or Performance Dashboards. The dashboards shown to a user come from their Primary User Type. Dashboards are commonly used to show things like:

• Accrued vacation
• Utilization
• Company performance metrics
• Personal performance metrics

This tab is only editable if you have the Advanced Analytics module enabled.