Kavi Help CenterKavi® Status Tracker Help
| Chapter 4. Access Control | ||
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Part I. Kavi Status Tracker Concepts and How-To Documents | 
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Table of Contents
Kavi Status Tracker access to projects and activities is highly configurable and extensible. Every organization will allow its members to view project status and activities at some point, and most will present specially designed views to the public when projects are published or accepting comments. The ability to edit project status tracking data may be reserved for administrators only, or the organization may extend this power to certain people who are associated with a project.
Direct access to project information and activities is configured on a per site basis. By default, these permissions are restricted to the Status Tracker Admin, but access to Member Area tools can be enabled to allow the workload to be distributed to users or groups that have a relationship to the project, such as the Project Editor or Owning Group. These kinds of users are known as Project Recorders.
Figure 4.1. Who Can Access Status Tracking Data
Different types of users have different levels of access to status tracking data. All users can see member-accessible reports (if any exist) — and this is all that most Account Holders can see. Users with a Project Recorder relationship to Project A can manage that project's status tracking data. A Status Tracker Admin has direct access to status tracking data for all projects — including Projects A, B and C — as shown in this diagram.
The Concepts document Scheduling and Recording Activities has a screenshot showing aProject Recorder View of the Member Area.
Back to topMember Area views of project and activity reports are enabled through the Member Accessible Reports tool in the Super Admin Area. This tool displays all reports that are available in Kavi Status Tracker, and all the Status Tracker Super Admin has to do to make a report available is select it via a check box and click the Save button.
Other sorts of displays are created specifically for the organization. These views are often gated on Project State, such as a new projects display, a display of projects currently accepting public comments and a published projects display. For more information, see Reports and Views.
Back to topAdministrative access is configured primarily through the Configure Kavi Status Tracker tool, possibly in conjunction with custom lookup fields that link to the Kavi® Groups or Kavi® Members databases.
By default, only the Status Tracker Admin (and of course, the Status Tracker Super Admin, Organization Admin and Super Admin) have access to tools used to add or edit projects and activities.
In this configuration, the Access by Person and Access by Group fields in Configure Kavi Status Tracker aren't used. None of the relationship lookup fields, such as Project Editor, Owning Group or Consensus Body, are selected. These fields may be deleted by Kavi if they aren't needed for project metadata or display purposes.
Status Tracker Admins are not necessarily allowed to delete a project. This option is controlled through the Project Deletion option in the Configure Kavi Status Tracker tool. If this option is set to 'Yes', Status Tracker Admins will see the Delete Project link when viewing a project. If set to 'No', projects cannot be deleted through Kavi Status Tracker tools, and must be deleted by Kavi administrators or authorized channel partners as the need arises.
In general, projects are tracked long-term, throughout the development process and well into maintenance. When it is time to mothball projects like these, it is usually preferable to archive the Kavi Status Tracker data, as opposed to deleting the project and all status tracking data.
The default setting puts all the responsibility in the hands of administrators, which gives the organization tight control over project data. As explained in View and Display Configuration, Project State is often used to gate display, and admin-only access provides the most reliable control over Project State settings so it is easier to make sure that information isn't displayed prematurely.
On sites where administrators have sole control over status tracking data, information from project participants must be sent to administrators so it can be added to Kavi Status Tracker. This results in some lag between the time that the participant generates and sends instructions to the administrator and the time that the administrator performs the task, and also requires some duplication of work. Besides these inefficiencies, this approach also requires the administrator to interpret the instructions of the participant, so the task is not performed by the person who is the most knowledgeable about it.
An organization can also choose to distribute the project status tracking workload among users who have a relationship with a specific project. These users, known as Project Recorders have access to Member Area tools and permission to edit their project's details and activities. Project Recorders do not have access to tools used to add or delete a project, send submissions or switch the project to a different Project Type.
Before distributed management can be enabled, relationship lookup fields such as the default examples Project Editor, Owning Group or Consensus Body must be available. Your organization may have different relationship lookup fields.
Two kinds of relationships:
- Person-to-project relationship
This type of relationship is established by performing a lookup on the Kavi Members database. This can be accomplished through the default Project Editor lookup field, or through a lookup field that is specific to your organization.
- Group-to-project relationship
This type of relationship is established by performing a lookup on the Kavi Groups database. This can be accomplished through the default Owning Group or Consensus Body lookup fields, or through a lookup field that is specific to your organization.
Once the required relationship lookup fields exist, person-to-project lookup fields are displayed in the Access by Person option in the Configure Kavi Status Tracker tool, and group-to-project lookup fields are displayed in the Access by Group option.
Selecting a person-to-project lookup field in the Access by Person option allows an individual to be selected for each project. The selected individual is given Project Recorder access to Member Area tools and permission to edit project and activity data for that specific project. If the organization wants to give Project Recorder access to more than one individual per project, multiple lookup fields can be added and selected.
Selecting a group-to-project lookup field in the Access by Group option allows Project Recorder access to Member Area tools and permission to edit project and activity data for that specific project to be given to the Group Chair and Document Managers. If the organization wants to give Project Recorder access to participants in more than one group, multiple lookup fields can be added and selected. For example, Group Chairs and Document Managers in both the Owning Group and Consensus Body might be given Project Recorder access.
In distributed management, the workload is shared between users who are intimately involved with a project, so those with the most expertise on the project can update project data and activities directly. It eliminates the duplication of work that happens when each project participant must compose detailed requests for the administrator, who must then interpret and implement these requests. The distribution of work reduces chances that administrator availability will become a bottleneck.
Having a large number of Project Recorders with access to the Project State increases the chances that the Project State might set to the wrong value, inadvertently exposing project information prematurely, so this might not be the best choice for a project where information needs to be tightly held. It also opens up the possibility that Project Recorders will overwrite each others information.
When a Status Tracker Admin adds a project, any relationship lookups that have been enabled for the organization are displayed. If a person-to-project lookup is enabled, the lookup displays users in the Kavi Members database so the administrator can select the person who is, for example, the Project Editor for this project. If a group-to-project lookup is enabled, the lookup displays groups in the Kavi Groups database so the administrator can select, for example, the Owning Group for this project.
Assuming Kavi Status Tracker has been configured for distributed project access, users who have been selected will be given Project Recorder access. These users will see a link to the Project when visiting the Kavi Status Tracker Member Area. The link leads to views of the project and activity schedule, and tools used to edit project and activity data.
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| Chapter 3. Reports and Views |  |
Chapter 5. Managing Project States |