2021.3

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

New users can be added from the Form tab page in the Users screen.:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

Add new user Add a new user

General user information

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

  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).

Authentication

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

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. The Update password task can be used by an administrator to set or update this password.

  • External provides authentication for Azure Active Directory.

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

Login

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

The Login verification option determines 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
  • Password and email - the user logs in with a password and a code that is sent by email
  • Password and TOTP token - the user logs in with a password and a code that is generated by a TOTP authenticator

SMS

To use email two-factor authentication in the Web user interface, the settings below need to be configured in the settings.ini file or using IAM extended properties. For the Mobile user interface, the settings below need to be configured in the appsettings.json file of the application tier.

ParameterDescription
TwoFactorSmsMessageServiceThis parameter indicates which service implementation is used for SMS two-factor authentication. Additional service implementations may be added in the future, but for now the only valid value is TSFTwilioSmsMessageService.
TwilioAccountSidThe SID of your Twilio account. This information can be found in Twilio's Console Dashboard.
TwilioAccountAuthTokenThe Auth Token of your Twilio account. This information can be found in Twilio's Console Dashboard.
TwilioFromNumberThe Twilio phone number used to send the SMS message to the user.

Email

To use email two-factor authentication in the Web user interface, the settings below need to be configured in the settings.ini file or using IAM extended properties. For the Mobile user interface, the settings below need to be configured in the appsettings.json file of the application tier.

ParameterDescription
TwoFactorEmailMessageServiceThis parameter indicates which email implementation is used for Email two-factor authentication. Additional implementations may be added in the future, but for now the only valid value is TSFSmtpMessageService.
SmtpServerThe address of the SMTP server used to send the email.
SmtpPortThe port on which the SMTP server listens.
SmtpEnableSSLWhether SSL will be used to provide transport-level encryption (yes/no).
SmtpUserThe username used to authenticate with the SMTP server.
SmtpPasswordThe password used to authenticate with the SMTP server.
SmtpFromThe email address used to send the email to the user.
SmtpFromDisplayNameThe display name shown to the user as the sender of the email.

TOTP

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)

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

For RDBMS authentication it is possible to 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 the administrator.

Allow change password

To allow a user to change their password on their own initiative:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form

  1. Check the Allow change box.

    See also the Universal GUI User manual.

Allow change password Allow change password

Password expiration

The expiration period for an application's password is set in IAM's Global settings:

menu Settings > Global settings

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

Password expiration Number of expiration days for a password

The expiration policy is set per user:

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form

  1. Make sure the Allow change box is checked. 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 expiration policy

Password strength

The minimum password strength for IAM authenticated users can be set in IAM's global settings:

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.

User preferences

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

Here you can specify the default language for the user and which level of user preferences are available to the user.

Select one of the predefined User preferences configurations 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.

User preferences configuration

Start and end date for a user

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

By specifying a period, it is possible to set a start and end date for a user. Access to all of the application will automatically be denied when the end date is reached.

User info

menu Authorization > Users > tab Form > tab User

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

User preferences

Contains the stored user preferences of the selected user.

The User preferences tab page in the Users screen is only available to Main administrators.

User preferences

Administrators

Overview of the IAM administrator roles of the selected user.

User groups

An overview of the user groups of which the current user is a member.

Session log

A log of all user sessions for the selected user. The session log is also available from the menu, in which case an overview of all users is displayed.

Two-factor log

A log of when a user is logged in using SMS, email or TOTP two-factor authentication.

Open id

A user's Open ID login.

Master data

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

The Tags tab page can be used when information about users that is not already available in the Intelligent Application Manager needs to be maintained.

← Group preferencesAccess analysis →