Access Control / User Maintenance

The administration function encompasses the set up and maintenance of users; the maintenance of system parameters and the configuration of the system. The administration module also allows for the viewing of error messages written by the system to an audit log.

Access Control

User Groups are created to control the forms that a user can access and what capabilities/functions a user has within each form.

Group Maintenance

In order to determine which functions a group of users can perform the Administrator must identify the MTS business functions required. Once the menu structure has been identified, the Functions, Menus, Tabs, Reports, Extracts and Imports will need to be allocated in order to restrict/expand a user’s group access to part or all functionality contained within. For example those groups with the function ADM_GEO_MAINT present allows users within that group to maintain locations via the locations form, if the form has been set up within the Menu structure.

Group Maintenance – Tabs

This tab allows the administrator the ability to control which tabs a group has access to. For example, the ‘Bookings’ group has access to the Trip Manipulation form, but, they do not necessarily need to see anything to do with finance, therefore, the administrator can restrict access to the finance tab to the Bookings group. All forms which have tabs can be controlled in this way, except, the Access Control form, which assumes that the administrator has access to ALL the tabs.

Add User to Group

Any number of users can be added to a group, this is done by highlighting the appropriate group and pressing ‘Add User to Group’. A list of users not already in the group will be displayed; it is then a matter of selecting the username.

Remove User From Group

Users can be removed from a group at any time.

Remove All Users From Group

Removes all users from a group in one action.

Users not in a Group

A list of users who do not belong to any group can be viewed.

User Maintenance

Administrators are given the ability to create users and administer user passwords. When setting up a new user, the Username, User Type, Description and Password are required. Once a user has been created, there are a number of mandatory User Parameters which are also created and cannot be deleted.

Within the ‘Edit’ function, the Administrator can temporarily disable a user’s account or can force a user to change their password. A number of parameters allow multiple selections, ie, take for example the Carrier user parameter, A user may only be able access one carrier, another user may be able access two carriers. This can be set up quite simply in this form.

On selecting the ‘Default Printers’ tab an individual user can be allocated a default printer and by selecting the ‘User Parameters’ tab, the Administrator can limit the amount of data that is displayed to the user, for example, if a particular user should only see data belonging to a particular Cost Centre, then a user parameter can be added with a value selected from a list where appropriate.

Change User Password

The Administrator can change the password of any user - this may be because the user has forgotten it.

System Parameters

System Parameters are used extensively throughout MTS. They allow Administrators to configure parameters that are used by forms, reports and database objects. For example the parameter ISOTRAK_BATCH_JOB_SIZE, currently set at 50, tells the ISO package and MSMQ daemon that when a batch is sent to Isotrak to be processed it will contain 50 jobs. Configuring this parameter allows an Administrator to obtain the optimal job processing performance.

The System parameter form is split into two halves, the top half contains parameters which the Administrator can maintain. The bottom half of the form (which is greyed out), contains static data and cannot be altered by anyone.

Audit Log

The Audit Log is used throughout the MTS system to record events and errors that occur during both forms and database execution. For example the MSMQ Daemon (a Visual Basic Application) writes a message to the Audit Log every 7 minutes. This allows Administrators to determine whether MTS/Isotrak jobs are being processed.

If the error type is set to ‘ERROR’ then the action flag is set to ‘YES’ in the Audit Log. Users can then search easily and deal with problems within MTS.