User and Group Management

You find Users and Group Management in the administration menu Administration > Users and Groups > Users and Groups Management. You need to have the administrator privileges to open it.

From the Users and Group Management dialog you can add, edit, and delete users and groups.

Rules

Different rules apply to the user and group management:

Users:

• A user can be a member of more than one group. The user will then always have the highest privileges:

Example

If the group Users is setup to allow "read" for the information group "Technical Specification" and the group Product Users is setup to allow "read", "write" and "delete" for the information group "Technical Specification", and the user is a member of both groups, the user will have "read", "write" and "delete" permissions for the information group "Technical Specification".

• A user cannot be deleted, if he has created an item (e.g., a product). If a user should no longer have access to Perfion, you deactivate the user. A deactivated user can always be activated again.

Groups:

• A group cannot be deleted if any users are members of the group, including deactivated users.

• The groups Administrators, Super Users and Users cannot be deleted. They are pre-configured in the Perfion database and are fundamental to the security setup.

• Newly created groups will have the same privileges as the pre-configured group Users. See table below.

Pre-configured groups

In the table below, you will find what standard areas and features each default groups gives its users access to:

A member of the group Administrators has all rights in Perfion. You cannot change the privileges of an Administrator.

The Super Users group has access to all created sections except Features and has full access to all information in all Information Groups. A member of the Super Users group can also delete, add, and edit items.

New groups that are created will have the same access as the pre-configured group Users. See the table above.

Security settings for users and groups

• Security settings can be set in 2 areas: for Information Groups and for Sections

• For an information group, you assign the user or group "read", "write" or "delete" permissions to all features in the information group.

Example

The group Marketing Users is setup to allow "read", "write", "delete" permission for the information group Marketing, while only "read" is allowed for the information group Technical Specification.

• For a section you give the user or group access.

Example

The group Marketing users get access to the section Photos.

• Security settings can only be set for users, the group Users, and groups you have created, since both the Administrator group and Super Users group already have full access to all information groups and all sections created.

Best Practice: Set permissions for group, not for users.

Steps to perform user and group management

Follow the steps below to perform user and group management:

1. Create users. See User Management.

2. Create one or more groups if needed. See Group Management.

3. Set the users group membership. See User Management and Group Management.

4. Set security settings for groups. See Security on Information Groups and Security on Sections.

After creation, you can at any time edit, add, and delete users, groups and security settings.

Users and Group Management dialog

You manage the users and groups from the same window Users and Group Management.

On the left side of the window, you select whether you want to work with users or groups. The list to the right side shows a list of the users or groups accordingly.

Right clicking on the right side gives you the opportunity to manage the users or the groups.

User Management

Right clicking in the users list give the following possibilities: Add New User, Set Password, Delete, Rename and Properties.

1. Select Administration > User and Groups > Users and Groups Management.

2. Select Users in the left side of the window and right click in the right side of the window.

Open

Add New User

1. Right click on the user and select Add new User. The following dialog opens:

Open

2. Enter User ID. The User ID must be unique and cannot be changed later on.

3. Enter Name and (optionally) Description.

4. Enter a Windows Domain User ID. The Windows Domain User ID lets you log in automatically.

a. Windows Domain User ID is unique in Perfion, so one cannot define the same ID for multiple users.

b. When Windows Domain User ID is in use, the Perfion user must have a non-empty password.

5. In the Default Feauture Group, you must select which information group (tab in your Item Editor dialog) is to be shown when you open/edit an item (e.g., a product). For more information about Information Groups.

6. Languages specifies which languages the user can access in Perfion.

a. To add a new language, click the Modify… button. The following window opens.

b. On the left side is the specific user’s active languages are displayed. On the right, there are two options: Active Languages and All Languages. 

i. Active Languages displays all languages currently assigned to all users. (This number cannot exceed the number of languages specified in the license.)

ii. All Languages displays all languages available to choose from the database.

c. To add a language to the user, double click on a language in Active Languages or All Languages. Alternatively, you can use the buttons in the middle of the window to add a single language or all active languages.

d. To remove a language from the user, double click on the language on the left side. Alternatively, you can use the buttons in the middle of the window similarly to the previous step.

e. Delete. Deletes the selected language. It is only deleted for the user. The language is still in the Perfion database and available for other users.

f. Make Editor will check ‘Can Edit’ for all selected languages. This is convenient if a user has a lot of languages assigned.

g. Make Reader will uncheck ‘Can Edit’ for all selected languages.

7. Enter a Password: This is not a mandatory step.

8. Confirm your password if you have entered a password above.

9. Click OK.

10. After creation you can add the user as a member of a group in the Member Of tab via User Properties. You can also assign Roles to the user in the Roles tab via User Properties.

Set password

1. Mark the user you want to set the password for.

2. Right click and select Set Password. The following dialog opens:

3. Enter new Password.

4. Confirm the new password.

5. Click OK.

Delete User

Not all users can be deleted. For more information see User and Group Management.

1. Mark the user you want to delete.

2. Right click and select Delete.

3. Click OK.

Rename User

1. Mark the user you want to rename.

2. Right click and select Properties.

3. Change the name and press OK.

Change User Properties

1. Mark the user you want to edit.

2. Right click on Properties. The User Properties dialog opens with 4 tab; General, Member Of, Roles and JSON API Token.

3. General tab:

   1. Make the changes to Name, Description and Windows Domain user ID.

   2. Choose whether the User should be active or not by selecting/deselecting the "User is active" checkbox.

   3. Change Default Feature Group and Languages. If you change one of these the user must log out and in again before it takes effect.

   4. Choose whether the User should be an Editor or a Reader by selecting/deselecting the "Make Editor" and "Make Reader" buttons. The number of Editors and Readers that can be active at the same time is determined by what is specified in the license. It is also possible to manually select which languages the specific user can edit by selecting/deselecting the checkboxes under the Can Edit tab.

Member of tab (Add or remove which groups the user should be a member of):

• Add. Click on the Add button, double-click on a group in the list. For multiple groups click Add again.

• Remove. Mark the user and click Remove.

Roles tab:

Using this tab allows Administrators to set specific roles for individual users or groups, which grant access to different areas and functionality in Perfion. For more information about roles, see Perfion Role-based Access.

JSON API Token tab:

• Fill in the URL for your JSON API and select the number of days the token should be active for. The aspire time value can be between 1 day and 3650 days (10 years)

• Press the “Generate” button, after which Perfion tries to get a token from the specified API in the URL.

For more information about generating user API tokens, see ‘Getting the token from Perfion Windows Client’. 

•  Click OK.

Group Management

Right clicking in the groups list give the following possibilities: Add new Group, Delete, Rename and Properties. 

1. Select Administration > User and Groups > Users and Groups Management.

2. Select Groups in the left side of the window and right click in the right side of the window.

Add new Group

1. Right click on Add new Group. The following dialog opens:

2. Enter ID. ID must be unique and cannot be changed later on.

3. Enter a Name (Optional).

4. Enter a Description (Optional).

5. Click OK

6. You can add members to the group via Properties.

Delete Group

Not all groups can be deleted. For more information, see User and Group Management.

1. Mark the group you want to delete.

2. Right click and select Delete.

3. Click OK.

Rename Group

1. Mark the group you want to rename.

2. Right click and select Properties.

3. Change the name and press OK.

Change User Properties

1. Mark the group you want to edit.

2. Right click on Properties. The Group Properties dialog open with three tabs; General, Members and Roles

3. General tab:

   1. Change the Name and Description fields.

• Members tab:

  • Adding users: Click on the Add button and double click on a user from the list. Repeat this step to add multiple users.

  • Removing users: Mark the user and click Remove.

• Roles tab: Use this tab to assign specific roles to the members of the group. For more information about roles, see Perfion Role-based Access.

• Click OK.

Security on Information Groups

Follow the steps below to set the security of an information group:

• Select the menu Administration > Information Groups. The following dialog opens:

• Select the Security Groups tab and press the “Security” button.

• Doing step 2 opens the following User Permissions windows:

• Click Add. The list with users and groups opens:

• Double-click on the group or the user to select which you want to define permissions for.
  The group/user is now shown in the User and Group Permission dialog and you can configure the permissions:

1. The given user or group can then be assigned permissions: check list Read/Edit/Movie/Create/Delete to assign user permissions. For more information see User Rights.

2. If you want to add permissions to another user or group, click Add again.

3. If you want to remove at group or user. Mark the user/group and click Remove.

4. Click OK.

5. Now you are back to the main Information Groups windows.

6. Click OK

Security on Sections

Follow the steps below to give a user or group access to a section.

• Select the menu Administration > Section Designer. The following dialog opens:

Here you can see all the sections created - Products, Catalogs and Website. For managing the sections see Core User Guide.

• Mark the section you want to configure security for:

• Right click and select Security. The User and Group Permissions dialog opens:

• Click Add. The list with users and groups opens:

• Double-click on the group or the user to select which one you want to give access to the preselected section.

• If you want to give access to another user or group, click Add again.

• If you want to remove a group or user. Mark the user/group and click Remove.

• Click OK.

• Click OK.

Connection Configuration

Connection profiles

The Perfion application can be configured with a Client Configuration file. A Client Configuration file holds information about which database the application should connect to. This information is referred to as a connection profile. Perfion can easily change between databases by using different Client Configuration files.

You specify where to store this Client Configuration file in the properties dialog of a shortcut to the Perfion application.

1. Right click on the Perfion application (Perfion.exe), choose Create Shortcut.

2. Right click on the Shortcut to the Perfion application, choose Properties.
   The following dialog appears:

3. Add an argument after the application path as shown above" -ClientConfig=[path to configuration file]\[name of Client Configuration file]".

Example

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfion\Perfion for Dynamics\bin\Perfion.exe" -ClientConfig="C:\Program Files\Perfion\ConfigFiles\PerfionDemo.xml"

If you do not have a Client Configuration file, simply write a filename .xml. The file will automatically be created during your connection configuration. See Connection configuration.

• Click OK.

Connection configuration

When you start up Perfion it will look for a Client Configuration file with a connection profile. If you have specified an argument in the shortcut properties Perfion will use the file specified in the argument, otherwise Perfion will use the ClientConfig.xml in the same directory as the Perfion application.

You can find the Connection configuration in the menu Administration > Connection.

1. Run Perfion. If no Client Configuration file exists, you will be prompted to tell Perfion how to connect to a Perfion database:

2. Click OK.
   The following dialog will appear to setup the connection:

• If you do not have a Client Configuration file and wants to create a new one:

  • Name the Microsoft SQL Server instance.

  • If required, you may enter username and password for the SQL Server.

Best Practice: Connect using SQL Server Authentication

1. Click Test to check that a successful connection can be made to the database. If successful a dialog with the following message will appear “Connection Test Successful”.

2. Click OK.

3. Select your Perfion database.

4. Click OK, a Client Configuration file is now created.

5. If you started Perfion via the shortcut to the Perfion application, the Client Configuration file is created in the directory as specified in the -ClientConfig argument. If you started the Perfion.exe directly the Client Configuration file is created in the same directory as the application.

6. If you already have a Client Configuration file you want to view or save:

   1. Click Load, an open file dialog appears.

   2. Select your Client Configuration file and click Open. Your Connection Configuration dialog is updated with the connection profile.

   3. Click Cancel if you only want to view the connection profile or Click OK if you want to save.

7. If you clicked OK, the Client Configuration file is now saved with the updated connection profile.

8. If you started Perfion from the shortcut to the Perfion application, the Client Configuration file is saved in the directory as specified in the -ClientConfig argument. If you started the Perfion.exe directly the Client Configuration file is saved in the same directory as the application.

9. It is also possible to save the shown connection profile to a file:

   1. Click Save As..., a Save As dialog appears.

   2. Choose where you want to save the file and enter a file name. Click Save.

   3. Click OK, and the shown connection profile is stored in the Client Configuration file as specified.

Change connection

If Perfion is already connected to a database, the connection can easily be changed to another connection by changing the configuration file or by creating a new one. This requires a user with Administrator rights in Perfion.

License Management

In this License dialog you can load your Perfion license. To get the dialog follow Administration > License.

A License file is an electronically signed document that contains a number of license codes with information about which features are available, how many users are allowed etc.

A license must be loaded into the Perfion database before anyone can use the Perfion application. Perfion licenses can be shared as a file which may be uploaded to the system, or from Perfion 2023-R2 it may be downloaded from a central license server.

When the License expires you will be prompted to load a new License.

Load license file

1. Click Load License file and select the license file you have received.

2. Click Open to load and display the license details on the dialog.

3. Click OK to save the new license information and close the dialog.

Download license

To download a license from the central Perfion license server, you need to input the name of the license holder and a license key. You will receive this information from Perfion Support as part of the onboarding process.

1. Input Name and Key under Licence Key Information

2. Click the Download License button

3. Click OK to save the new license information and close the dialog.

Update License

If you need to update the License, an administrator will be able to load a new license by selecting Administration > License. Introduced in Perfion 2023-R2, the administator may also use the Download License button to check for an updated license.

Also introduced in Perfion 2023-R2, an administrator may configure a scheduled task, Check for updated license, to automatically check for a new license e.g. once a week.

Switch User

You can easily switch user if needed, meaning you log out and another user logs in.

• In the Perfion Application top-right corner you can see the current user. To switch user simply click on the current user and a drop-down menu opens:

• Click Switch User. The following dialog opens:

• Enter UserID.

• Enter Password (if required).

• Select Remember me if you want your Perfion Login to be remembered next time you login.

• Click OK.

Set Password

You can change your own password when you are logged in.

All users have this possibility.

1. From the top-right corner in the Perfion application select the current user and select Change Password. The following window opens:

2. Enter your Old Password (your current password). If you do not have a password leave the field empty.

3. Enter the New Password.

4. Confirm the new Password.

5. Click OK.

Settings

Settings for the Perfion system can be set by selecting the menu Administration > Settings. The following dialog opens:

From here different settings can be set by choosing the tab relevant.

Translations

In the translations settings tab the settings regarding translation setup can be changed. Translation handling is implemented different places – e.g. in Perfion Web client grid and Perfion Windows client grid, see relevant user guides.

By default translation handling is disabled:

By changing the Translation Service and enter a valid API key relevant for the selected service and pressing ‘OK’ translation is enabled.

Google Translate API key can be obtained from Google, please use documentation from Google, starting point: https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/setup

DeepL API key can be obtained from DeepL, please use documentation from DeepL, starting point: https://www.deepl.com/pro-api?cta=header-pro-api

Google Translation enabled:

DeepL enabled: