NEWS
Tips & Tricks - Caselle User Security
David Peterson
A number of improvements and features have been added to the security in the Clarity product suite. In this Tips and Tricks we will cover these new features and changes to get you, as the user, more familiar with them so you will be able to take advantage of them. We will explain: Modify security settings, Setup/modify group rights, and Setup/modify user rights.
Modify Security Settings is one area where we have taken the best of our Version 2.x/3.x applications and added new features. The “Lockout user after n attempts” is one of the features that came from our previous applications. This feature allows you, as the administrator, to set how many times a user may enter the incorrect password, which prevents someone from trying to guess a user’s password at login.
Now to the new features! Now, you can require a user to change their password after specific number of days using the “Require user to change password every nn days”, which will force the user at login to change the password. The “Allow password to be reused” option will allow the user, after the specified time, to use the same password again. These two features take away some of the administrative headache and place it into the hands of the user, which in turn increases security by encouraging the user to change their password more often. We have included more password requirements to prevent the use of passwords that may be guessed easily. Under password requirements you can specify requirements for user passwords. Minimum length will require the user to have a certain number of characters, and the range is 0-20 characters. You can also require the password contain at least a single letter and also at least a single number.
Setup and modify group rights allows you to set up groups to associate with users. When setting up groups, you’ll want to name the group something that will be easily associated with the rights assigned to the group. The description field will allow you to give the group name more definition. In “Setup and modify user rights” you can associate a user to only one group. Using group rights will make user setup a breeze, especially when you are setting up twenty or thirty users in Clarity’s user security.
Setup and modify user rights is almost exactly the same as our version 2.x/3.x applications but with a few nice improvements. Before you can assign “rights” to a user, you will need to set up a user by clicking the new button next to the User ID field. Once the user is set up you can select the user in the user id field. Now specify a name to identify the user with their full name. Entering a password for the user is a good idea; give them a generic password they can change it later even though this field can be left blank. The administrator can use the Change Password button if a user forgets his password. The Password field will be masked after the initial setup. The Network User ID field can be used in association with the user’s Windows login user name, which should be entered here or the field can be left blank. The Active box when checked activates the user’s login; if it is unchecked it will deactivate the login. The Login Locked box, by default, needs to be unchecked to permit the user to login. The Login Locked box is for users that exceed the number of password attempts, as discussed earlier. The administrator will need to uncheck this box if a user has exceeded the designated number of attempts in order for the user to login again. The Groups box allows you to associate a user to a group, as previously mentioned. You should only associate a user with one group. When a user is associated with a group you can still add or remove a user’s rights above and beyond the group’s rights. The Rights tab is the area where you will tailor the user’s rights.