Users

Introduction to users

The Users screen contains an overview of all users and user-related information, such as group memberships, effective rights and session logs. To grant a user access to a Thinkwise application, the user needs to be added to the Intelligent Application Manager first.

Add users

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To add a new user:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

Add a new user

Add general user information

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group General

1. If necessary, add a Tenant.

2. The User id is the login name of the user. Depending on the Authentication type, this could be the Windows domain user, database user, Kerberos user or an identifying name.

3. The Visitor field can be checked to indicate whether a user is an external visitor of the application (as opposed to an internal or hired employee).

Add an email, telephone number, company, ID

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group User info

Here you can provide additional user information, such as the company a user belongs to and the company-specific employee ID.

Add a start and end date

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group Period

Specify a period to set a start and end date for a user. Access to all applications will automatically be denied when the end date is reached.

Configure user preferences

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group User preferences

Here you can specify the default language and time zone for the user and which level of user preferences should be available. For information about copying, importing, and exporting user preferences, see User preferences.

1. Select a Configuration or create a new configuration using the pop-up. Available configurations are:

   • None - No user preferences are stored and the user preferences ribbon is hidden.
   • Resize - Users can collapse and expand their menu and ribbon. Furthermore, they can change the sort sequence and column width in a grid view.
   • Move - Resize plus the option to configure their own start objects and set the sort sequence of all subjects.
   • OnOff - All options except for changing screen types.
   • Complete - All user preferences options are available to the user.

2. Select an Application language.

3. Select the Time zone that should be used for a user. The default is 'Etc/UTC'. It is also possible to add time zone claim mappings for users through OpenID Connect provisioning.

Authentication

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group Authentication

The Thinkwise Platform provides various authentication types: RDBMS, Windows, Kerberos, IAM and External.

• IAM authentication is intended to simplify the administration of large numbers of Intelligent Application Manager users. IAM authentication users are only registered in the Intelligent Application Manager and not in the database. During login, the account details are validated in the Intelligent Application Manager. The password is securely stored in the IAM database. Select the task Update password to set or update the password.

  See also The same email address for two users.

• External provides authentication by an external identity provider. See also OpenID.

note

To specify a different authentication type for an application database, set the extended property Authentication of the application in IAM. See Extended properties.

The same email address for two users

note

Always try to prevent using the same email address for two user accounts.

It is possible to use an email address as a user ID. However, if that email address is also used as an email address for another user account, the user ID will be preferred over the email address.

Example:

user ID	name	email address
dough@gmail.com	John Dough	jdough@mycompany.org
joline	Joline Dough	dough@gmail.com

The email address dough@gmail.com exists for two user accounts; once as a user ID (for John) and once as an email address (for Joline).

• John can log in with both dough@gmail.com and jdough@mycompany.org.
• Joline can only log in with the user ID 'joline'.

Country, location, and department

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Master data

This tab contains information about the user's country, location or department. This information is also available in the IAM analysis tools.

User tags

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menu Authorization > Users > tab User tags

On the tab User tags, you can maintain information about users that is not already available in the Intelligent Application Manager.

When you copy a user, the tags will be copied with it.

Login and password

Exclude from maximum amount of sessions

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A user can only have a limited number of concurrent sessions in a specific application. This limit is set for all users in IAM. See Applications.

Service accounts are subject to this limit by default. However, you can allow a service account an unlimited number of sessions for any application to which it has rights. Other users' sessions are still limited.

To remove this limit for a service account:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group Login

1. Select Exclude from max. # sessions.

Two-factor authentication

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group Login

1. In field Login verification, select if a user is required to use two-factor authentication:

   • Password - the user logs in with a password only.
   • Password and SMS - the user logs in with a password and a code that is sent by SMS. For additional settings, see Indicium SMS configuration or Web GUI SMS configuration.
   • Password and email - the user logs in with a password and a code that is sent by email. For additional settings, see Emails.
   • Password and TOTP token - the user logs in with a password and a code that is generated by a TOTP authenticator

TOTP

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If TOTP authentication is used, the user receives a secret key code on first login. This code needs to be registered in a TOTP authenticator app, like Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator, by entering the key or scanning the QR code. If the user has successfully registered their TOTP device, the TOTP device registered checkbox will be checked.

Every time the user wants to log in, they need to enter the time-based code generated by the TOTP authenticator app. To allow a fallback to email-based two-factor authentication, for example if the user does not have access to their smartphone, check the Allow fallback to email option.

The Reset TOTP device task can be used to reset the TOTP secret key, for example when a user's smartphone is stolen.

Initial password (RDBMS)

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group Password

For RDBMS authentication you can specify an Initial password. This password is used to generate a script for creating users on the database. It can be used to keep track of the initial password and communicate this password to the users. This password cannot be used to log on to the application. Make sure to clear this field after RDBMS users are created or the password for IAM users is updated.

The system keeps track of how often a password is changed or reset (Changed/forgotten count). This number is incremented every time the user requests a new password or changes their password, and when the password is changed by an administrator.

Allow change password

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To allow a user to change their own password:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User > group Password

1. Select the checkbox Allow change.

   See also the Universal GUI User manual.

Allow change password

Password expiration period

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To set the expiration period for an application's password:

menu Settings > Global settings

1. Enter a number of days in the field Password expires in (days).

This setting is used in the expiration policy you can set for a user.

Number of expiration days for a password

Password expiration policy

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To set the expiration policy for a user:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > group Password

1. Make sure to select the checkbox Allow change. This allows a user to change the password from the user interface.

2. Select an Expiration policy:

   • Force expired - The user needs to change the password on the next login.
   • Default expiration policy - After the number of days specified, the user needs to change the password. If the field Password expires in (days) is empty, passwords with Default expiration policy will never expire.
   • Never expires - Use this for service accounts that never need to expire and have no user available to change the password.

Password expiration policy

Password strength

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To set the minimum password strength for IAM authenticated users:

menu Settings > Global settings

The following calculation is used to determine the password strength:

• The total password length gives up to 3 points (at 10 characters)
• Two uppercase characters and two lowercase characters gives 0.6 points
• Two numbers gives 0.6 points
• Two symbols gives 0.8 points

Setting the minimum password strength to 5 will require the user to match all the password requirements. Setting the minimum password strength to 4 allows the user to skip either symbols, numbers or varying casing.

When the user attempts a password change and the password strength is insufficient, the user will be notified of the shortcomings of the desired password.

Password strength requirements for RDBMS accounts or Windows accounts is delegated to the database server or active directory.

E-mails for reset password and two-factor authentication

Indicium main administrator

When users set or reset their password, or log in with two-factor authentication, Indicium needs to send an email with a new token.

note

If a user has not set a password yet, they can set it via email using the link 'Forgot your password' on the login page.

To set up an email provider for reset password and two-factor authentication in IAM:

menu Settings > Global settings > tab Email providers

1. Enter the required settings for the email provider. See Email providers.

2. Configure the templates for password reset and two-factor authentication. See Templates for reset password and two-factor authentication).

3. Make sure the users' email addresses are configured in IAM. See Add users.

Templates for reset password en two-factor authentication

Indicium main administrator

For each supported application language, templates for Password reset and Two factor token are available. Each template for each supported language contains a default text. In IAM, you can deviate from this text where necessary.

menu Settings > Global settings > tab Email templates > tab System email templates

1. Select the tab with the type of email template that you want to add or edit.

2. Enter or change the required data for each template that you want to use:

   • Email template/Notification email template - Select the template type from the drop-down list.

   • Language - Select the language of the email template.

   • Default template - Select whether this template is the default template. If a version for the user's language does not exist, Indicium will send an email in the language marked as default for that template type.

   • Title - Enter the email's subject.

   • Email body - Enter the text for the email body. For System email templates only, you can use the following parameters that will be filled automatically:

     • {url} - this parameter contains the full URL to the reset password or two-factor authentication page, with the query strings filled in. The user can just follow the link and does not need to fill in the reset or the two-factor code manually.
     note

     If Indicium is hosted with two or more different domains, the {url} parameter will return to the domain from which it was called.

     • {resetToken} - This parameter contains the reset token that must be filled in to reset the user's password. It is only available for the Password reset template.
     • {twoFactorToken} - This parameter contains the two-factor authentication token that must be filled in to authenticate when logging in. It is only available for the Two factor token template.

Tips

• It is possible to delete templates that you do not need. For example, if you do not want to specify or maintain a template for each language, you can delete all other languages and only keep a default language.
• You can enter the sender's name (From name) and email address (From address) in the menu Settings > Global settings > tab Email providers.

Templates for password reset and two-factor authentication

User preferences

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menu Authorization > Users > tab User preferences

This tab contains the stored user preferences of the selected user. For example, the language and time zone. See Configure user preferences.

User preferences

Introduction to user preferences

The Thinkwise platform's user interfaces used to have various types of user preferences that were configured per exact navigation location in the UI, per path. For example, sorting invoice lines under Customer > Invoices > Invoice lines would not be shared with Invoices > Invoice lines. On the other hand, self-created prefilters and cube views would be shared for all occurrences of a subject in the UI and across all occurrences of variants of a subject in the UI. Because of that, the user-defined prefilter Pending invoices (created in the table Invoice) would also appear in the Paid invoices variant of the table Invoice.

As of Thinkwise Platform version 2024.1, user preferences for user interfaces using Indicium (the Universal GUI) store user preferences per model object or model object variant. This results in user preferences being shared among all occurrences of a subject in the UI. User-defined prefilters and user-defined cube views are stored per model object or model object variant and are not automatically shared among all variants.

Copy user preferences from another user

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You can copy the user preferences of a user account to another user account if it is in the same IAM environment. If a preference setting already exists, this value will NOT be changed.

tip

If the user accounts are in different IAM environments, you can first export the user preferences from the source environment, and then import them into the target environment.

menu Authorization > Users

To copy user preferences from one user's account to another:

1. In the grid, select the target user account to which you want to copy the preferences.
2. Execute the task Re-apply user preferences .
3. In the dialog box, select the option Copy. The field To user is prefilled.
4. Select the From tenant and From user information of the user account from which you want to copy the preferences.
5. Click Execute. The user preferences of the To user are overwritten with the user preferences of the From user.

Export user preferences

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You can export the user preferences of a user account to a JSON file. This file contains all the information that is included on the tab User preferences.

To export user preferences to a JSON file:

menu Authorization > Users

1. In the grid, select the user account of which you want to download the preferences.
2. Execute the task Export user preferences .
3. In the dialog box, specify the Model, Branch, and Application from which you want to download the data.
4. Click Execute. The user preferences of the selected user are downloaded to your computer.

Import user preferences

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You can import user preferences from a JSON file and apply them to a user account. This JSON file contains all the information that is included on the tab User preferences. Such a JSON file is generated when you export user preferences.

To import user preferences from a JSON file:

menu Authorization > Users

1. In the grid, select the target user account to which you want to import the preferences.
2. Execute the task Re-apply user preferences .
3. In the dialog box, select the option Import. The fields To user and To tenant are prefilled.
4. Select the Model, Branch, and Application to which you want to import the data.
5. Upload the JSON file that contains the user preferences.
6. Click Execute. The user preferences of the To user are overwritten by the preferences in the JSON file.

Clean up unused preferences

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You can clean up the user preferences of applications that no longer exist.

menu Authorization > Users

1. Execute the task Clean up unused preferences .

Any unused preferences that are found are deleted automatically.

Re-migrate classic user preferences

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The Thinkwise platform's user interfaces used to configure and store user preferences path-based before version 2024.1 (see Introduction to user preferences). This is called the classic structure. User preferences for user interfaces using Indicium (the Universal GUI) store user preferences per model object or model object variant.

During the upgrade to platform version 2024.1, the user preferences have been migrated automatically. If you have continued using a user interface from a version before 2024.1 after that, you can migrate your user preferences again later.

To migrate your classic user preferences:

menu Authorization > Users

1. Start the task Re-migrate classic UP .
2. Limit the re-migration to a certain tenant, user, or user group, and to a certain model, branch, and application.

warning

Any previously migrated (or created) model-based user preferences for the chosen users will be removed to make room for the migration of path-based user preferences.

1. Select Execute.

Alternatively, you can start the task Re-migrate classic UP from the menu Advanced > Administration to quickly pick a set of applications, users, or user groups to re-migrate.

Note that classic user preferences cannot always be migrated 1-to-1 to the new structure. If a conflict occurs, the migration will pick the most relevant path. This favors user preferences configured for more accessible paths over nested paths that reside deeper in detail and lookup structures.

Assign an administrator role to a user

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To assign an administrator role to a user:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Administrators

See also Which role can assign another role?.

Send a notification to users

See User notifications.

Add a user to a user group

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To add a user to a user group:

menu Authorization > Users > tab User groups

See also User groups.

Overview of effective user rights

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An overview is available of all the effective access types that a user has.

To get a better understanding of the effective access type:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Effective user rights

1. Execute the task Explain .

   The reason for the effective access type is explained in a pop-up. See also Access types.

Delete a user

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menu Authorization > Users > tab List

To delete a user:

1. Make sure that you are viewing all users:
   • Universal GUI Turn off the prefilter Active or new .
   • Windows GUI Turn off the prefilters Active users and Inactive users .
2. Select the user(s) you want to remove.
3. Delete the user(s).

Logs

Session log

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Session log

This is a log of all the sessions for the selected user. An overview of the sessions for all the users is available from the Analysis menu.

Two-factor log

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Two-factor log

This is a log of when a user is logged in using SMS, email or TOTP two-factor authentication. An overview of the sessions for all the users is available from the menu Analysis.

Open ID log

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menu Authorization > Users > tab Log actions

This tab contains a user's Open ID login actions. See OpenID.