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Only people who are registered as users have the right to access ProcessMaker. Those users can be organized into groups and departments. The type of activities that users can perform and the interface users see is determined by their roles.
To administer users, groups and departments, log in as the "admin" or another user who has the PM_USERS permission in their role. Then, go to the Users tab in the sidebar under the Admin menu:
To see the list of users registered in the current workspace, go to Admin > Users > Users.
The following columns provide information about the user accounts:
To search for users, use the field in the upper right side of the Users window:
By default, users are listed according to the order they are found in the wf_WORKSPACE.USERS
table in the database; however, the table can be resorted by column by clicking on the column's header. To sort the column in ascending or descending order, click on the down arrow to the right of the header label and select Sort Ascending or Sort Descending from the dropdown menu.
To change which columns are displayed in the User list, click on the down arrow in a column's header and select Columns from the dropdown menu. Then, mark or unmark the checkboxes next to the columns to be displayed in the list.
New users can be created inside the ProcessMaker interface or by importing them from an external authentication source such as LDAP or Active Directory.
To create a new user inside the ProcessMaker interface, go to Admin > Users > Users and click on the New button in the toolbar.
Fill out the following form. All required fields are identified by an asterisk (*).
Personal Information
Change Password
Account Options
To force the user to change their password at next login, check the User must change password at next logon box. When the user enters their credentials, the Change Password Form will display:
It is not necessary to make any additional configurations in order to force users to change their passwords.
Profile
After the user's information is completed, click on Save to create the new user account.
The User page in the Admin console shows information about each user when you click on the Summary option. It will show a summary of the user information and statistics about the number of cases in which the user has participated. Enable this option by clicking on the name of the user:
The User Summary displays the following information:
Using Replaced By
The Replace by field designates another user, who will replace the user when their status changes to Inactive or Vacation.
The following example demonstrates how Replaced by works:
Considerations Before Using Replaced By
Take the following into consideration:
There are three ways to edit the information of a user:
Note that existing cases will keep displaying the old information. Changes to the user's information will only be reflected in new cases or when existing cases are routed to the next task after the change. For example, if the administrator changes the name of the user from "Cybil" to "Cybil123", the change will be reflected only in the cases created after the change, as shown in the image below.
The same form used to create a new user will be diplayed. The current information about the user will be displayed in each field of the form. Make the necessary changes and save the form.
Accessing the Summary Options
In order to edit the user information, a new Edit button was added:
Clicking on it will redirect to the form where the user information may be changed.
Accessing the User Options
At the upper right side of the screen, the username of the current user is shown. By clicking the name, the user will be redirected to the user information section. Only users with the PROCESSMAKER_ADMIN permission assigned to their role are able to access this option at the end of the form:
In order to delete a user's account, two conditions must be met:
It is generally not recommended to delete user accounts, since user records should be maintained for historical purposes. Instead, it is recommended to deactivate the user's account by switching its status from Active to Inactive.
It is possible to enable or disable a user from the user list without changing data in the database, which is helpful if the user does not need to be deleted.
Before selecting a user from the list, the option Status will be displayed as an inactive option:
Select a user from the list and the Status option will change to the Disable option:
Click on the Disable option and the user will have the label Inactive:
To enable the user click on the Enable option from the menu:
If the user who will be disabled is assigned to a case, a message appears indicating that the user has cases assigned. In this case, if the user is disabled, a reassign option has to be defined in the process to reassign the task.
It is possible to assign groups to users directly from the user list:
By choosing one user from the list, the Groups option will be enabled. Clicking on Groups will open a window listing the group that particular user belongs to.
To assign groups, click on the button and a divided window will display. On the left column the Available Groups will be listed and on the right column the Assigned Groups will be listed:
Select a group and click on > to assign a group to the available groups list or click on >> to assign all groups.
The Authentication Source can be assigned from the user list. Choose a user from the list and the Authentication button will be enabled:
For more information about this option, refer to this documentation.
Groups are a way to organize users and to simplify the assignment of tasks to multiple users. In the Purchase Request example process, the "Initiate task" task can be assigned to the "Employees" group, which would includes everyone in the organization. That way, anyone in the organization is able to start a Purchase Request case. If the organization has two accountants and both are assigned to the "Generate Receipt" task, then an "Accountants" group can be created and assigned to the task rather than assigning each accountant individually. Assigning groups, rather than individual users, will eliminate a lot of hassle for process designers, since it can be difficult to remember to include every individual user when assigning tasks.
Note: Take into consideration that ProcessMaker does NOT support sub-groups. Therefore, user groups cannot be organized hierarchically, and nested groups can not be created.
Assigning tasks to groups rather than to individual users is much more flexible, since each process doesn't have to be modified when user accounts are deactivated or modified. Groups can be very convenient when there are frequent changes of personnel in an organization. If multiple tasks are assigned to a particular manager in dozens of processes, when that manager is transferred, each task will have to be reassigned to the new manager individually. In contrast, if the tasks are assigned to the group "Manager", then the only change will be to switch the one user in the group.
To see the list of groups, go to Admin > Users > Groups.
To create a new group, click on the New link at the top left of the list of groups. In the dialog box, enter the name of the new group.
After creating a group, it will appear in the list of groups.
Activate and Inactivate Groups
To edit a group's name and status, first select the group in the list, then click on the Edit button in the toolbar.
Likewise, a group can be removed by first selecting it, then clicking on Delete in the toolbar.
A popup window will verify that the group is not assigned to a task before deleting it.
Set the Status to Active if the group is currently in use, otherwise set to Inactive. If Inactive, no tasks that have been assigned to the group can be executed. Note that when a user's status is set to Inactive, they can't log in or use ProcessMaker. When a group's status is set to Inactive, however, users assigned to that group can still log in and use ProcessMaker, they just can't execute any tasks assigned to the group.
When a group is set as Inactive, the status will change to Inactive in the list, but the group will not disappear from the list:
A user account can belong to zero, one, or many groups, and groups can have multiple users. In other words, many groups may be assigned to many users. The Users column displays how many users are assigned to a group, and the Tasks column shows how many tasks the group has been assigned to.
To add a user to group, first select the group in the list. Then, click on the Users button at the top of the list. A new window will appear:
Click on to add users to the selected group.
On the left side, the list of available users will be displayed.
To assign a user, double click on the user and they will be automatically sent to the right panel. You can also select the user and click on the arrow > to send it. To unassign a user, double-click the user or click on the arrow <.
To do a case-insensitive search for a particular user, enter part of the first or last name of the user into the Search textbox and press Enter. To see all the available users again after doing a search, clear the Search textbox and press Enter.
To remove a user from an existing group, click on the Remove link of the selected group on the left side of the panel and confirm in the popup question box to remove the user.
Departments are another way to organize users based on an hierarchical organization that determines the manner and extent to which roles and responsibilities are delegated, controlled, and coordinated, as well as how information flows between levels of hierarchy in a company. In ProcessMaker, departments should represent the units in the organization, and the employees of each entity (that will work in processes of the company) should be assigned to these departments. Creating the departments and setting the managers (optional) for each department will indicate to who employees should report to when submitting information that needs revision or approval from a supervisor according to the hierarchical organization of the company.
A sub-department in ProcessMaker represents a unit that depends on another unit in the structure of a company. Creating sub-departments in ProcessMaker also gives administrators a graphical representation of the structure of the company.
To manage departments and sub-departments, log in to ProcessMaker with a user, such as the "admin", who has the PM_USERS permission in their role. Then go to Admin > Users > Departments to see a list of the departments and the number of users assigned to them.
For departments, take into account the following:
To create a new department, click on the New button. Enter the name of the new department and click on Save.
To create a sub-department under a parent department, first select the parent department in the list and then click on New Sub-Department. Enter the name of the new sub-department and click on Save.
The sub-department will appear under its parent department in the list:
To edit a department:
To assign users to a department, go to Admin > Users > Departments to view the list of departments. Select a department and click on Users. The list of already assigned users will display in the window that opens:
Click on the button to add users to the department. In the window that opens, the left panel has the list of available users who aren't yet assigned to any department. The users assigned to the department are listed in the right panel.
Select a user or multiple users in the list of available users and click on > to add them to the department. To add all available users to the department, click the >> button. If the department has no users, the first user assigned to the department will automatically be set as the department's sSupervisor by default. See the Reports to function.
To remove users from a department, select the user(s) from the left-hand list. Then click on < to remove the user(s) from the department. To remove all users from the department, click on the << button. Remember that users can only belong to one department at a time, so first remove a user from one department before adding that user to another department.
It is also possible to select users and drag and drop them from one panel to another in order to add or remove users from the department.
To delete a department, go to Admin > Users > Departments and select a department in the list and then click on Delete. In the confirmation dialog box, click on OK to delete the department.
Note: If a department has sub-departments, first delete the sub-departments before deleting the department.
To assign a user as "Manager" in a department or sub-department, first select the Department (or sub-department) and then click on Users. In the user list, select a user and then click on Set Manager.
To remove a manager from a department, click on No Set Manager
In the list of departments, the username of the manager and the number of users assigned to each department will be displayed:
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