User groups control the permissions of a user. “Permissions” is a term that refers to what menu, submenu, and function links a user is permitted to view and access. User groups in EMSWeb are available under Admin > Security > Groups. If your Groups grid is empty, click on Show Shared to view the permission groups created by the EMSWeb administrator. Select the permission groups desired on the left column and then click on Copy. Copies of the selected groups will appear on the Groups grid.

Select the group of interest and click on Add Users to add user accounts from a quick pick list. Or, you can add a group to a user account by going to Admin > Security > Users, selecting the user account of interest, and clicking on Add Groups. A group dropdown menu will appear where you can select the group of interest and save it by clicking on the plus symbol to the right of the group dropdown.

To view the actual permissions of a user group, select the user group (from the Groups grid), click on its profile icon to the left of the group name, and select Permissions. The “Edit Permissions” form is presented with a hierarchical structure of all of the menu, submenu, and function links and their permission settings. Figure below shows the permissions of the default user group. You must expand each menu by clicking on the plus symbol to the left of the menu name to expose the permissions within. Permissions to add, view, edit, and delete are available for each menu.

More info: Utility Pane – My Dashboard and Help

The following are the two most important things to understand about these permission settings:

1. A red X in one of the permission boxes not only removes the applicable permission from the user (i.e., prohibits the user from adding, viewing, editing, or deleting data within the menu), but also overrides any other setting that may be given to the user in another group. For example, if you assign one of the top permission groups (e.g., Organization Administrator gives access to nearly every menu in EMSWeb) to a user also assigned the Default user group, the user will still not see the Executive Summary or Manager Pages submenus until the Default user group is removed from their account.

2. Permissions are turned on with a green checkmark either at the level of the specific menu OR by checking the parent menu. Permissions act recursively with the parent setting automatically applying to its child menus. For example, in the Default user group, the Home main menu has a green checkmark in the “View” permission box. Therefore, all submenu links also are viewable unless they have a red “X” in their view box. The EMS Data submenu has a green checkmark in the view box. Therefore, the two function links within will also be viewed, even though they do not have a green checkmark.