RationalPlan Project Server is a project management system that is suitable for multiple users that need to work on a common base of projects and resources. It results the need to have a mechanism for managing these users and in what follows we shall treat this issue.
The server system has two access interfaces as described in previous chapter. The web-based part is done through the use of a browser where users can login with a username and a password.
Once logged into the system the list of users can be easily seen as in the next screen shoot:
From this point the administrator can manage the users by adding new users, updating the data of a user or deleting users.
Users can be created from scratch or they can be created from an already existing resource in the company. When loaded from an existing resource it is created a relationship between the user and that resource. This way the user can see its assigned tasks for the company's projects.
For each user that is being added to the system the administrator needs to supply a username and a password that are needed to connect through either RationalPlan Multi Project or through the web area based on the given roles:
There are available a set of predefined roles that can be given to a user or that can be used to create new custom roles:
Administrator - this role should be given to those users that are allowed to enter the administration area and to manage the users accounts and the repository data
Global Project Manager - this role should be given primarily to those project managers that need to have access to all the projects from the company; they will have the possibility to connect to the server with RationalPlan Multi Project and to make changes to the projects stored on the server
Global Stakeholder - the rest of project stakeholders that only need to view projects details should have user accounts with just this role; this prevents the modification of server data by users that should only read it. These users will be able to connect to the server using RationalPlan Project Viewer product.
Resource - those users that are allowed to only see and update their own assignments
More than that although a user might have a certain role and hence a list of rights you can always establish a list of projects in which this user might be interested. This is useful in the case a user has limited access to all the projects of the company but he needs to have more rights on certain projects that he is interested in.