With the recent release of Perspective Version 3.3, I wanted to take a moment to dig into the new options for setting up users to configure and administer the application.
In past versions, to be granted the ‘Administrator’ right was a very powerful option. The conventional rules most users deal with did not apply to administrators—they could do anything, see anything, change anything, and had the power to decide what other users could see and do. It was the ultimate right for full control of the Perspective system, but all that power and control could also become a burden. If too many users had admin rights, controls slip and accountability is lost, but if you did not have enough administrators, the responsibilities fell to a few and overloaded them in the day-to-day management of the system as it grew with your organization.
Version 3.3 resolves these issues and concerns. As an Administrator in Perspective 3.3, new rules apply meaning you can only see and access the data you need or want to access. For example, if you hide a section of Perspective that your organization is not using, it will be hidden from the administrator as well as everyone else so everyone is seeing the same system through the same configuration. The lines have been clearly drawn between the administration and the configuration of Perspective. Don’t want a user to be able to create or edit other users but do want them to be able to manage the lookup values or labels in the system? You now have the ability to grant permission to only the pieces of Perspective configuration and administration as is necessary.
The Administrator right now gives you the ability to manage workgroups, roles and users in Perspective only to the extent necessary to grant access to the system. Any access to configuration of Perspective is now managed through additional privilege options. Lookups, labels, flags, auditing and all the dispatching components such as officers and SOPs (standard operating procedures) are now each individually separated into sections that can be turned on and off at the user level. All the features of managing privileges are available so you can control access at the system, role or user level and have it cascade down to existing and new users.
For existing clients upgrading from Version 3.2, the permissions originally granted to users have been carried over ‘as is’ to 3.3. Administrators will still get access to all of administration and non-admins will not see any changes. This means you now have some decisions to make regarding opening up parts of the application to certain users as it makes sense in your organization. We recommend your Perspective Administrator(s) reviews and adjusts System Privileges, along with role and user permissions, accordingly to ensure your users retain the ability to view—or not view—appropriate areas of Perspective. Until your organization has adjusted to how Perspective 3.3 handles Administrator rights, we recommend you pay close attention when new users are created to ensure they have appropriate rights.
The biggest change for administrators will be in data forms and accessing records—if your admin account was set up with only one workgroup or a lower level access right because the Administrator right would overwrite those settings anyway, that has all changed. You will see less data then you did before and may need to adjust your account to accurately set the workgroups you need access to in order to see records you could see previously. This is expected and will allow for more users to share the role of Administrator knowing that just because someone is Administrator does not mean they have access to information or investigations you don’t want them to see. All changes administrators make to user permissions are tracked in the auditing modules so when access is adjusted, it can also be monitored.
For new and existing clients, you now have the increased flexibility required to configure Perspective to further guarantee its success and value across your organization. You are able to ensure the right people have the right access to maintain and grow the system in the future and share or separate the roles to maximize the use and lower the overhead of having one person responsible for everything.
For a more in-depth look into these administration changes, visit the Resources section of our client site and download the User Tip ‘Understanding Perspective 3.3’s Administrator Rights’.
—Ryan Thiessen, Director, Product Management