Security Group Setup

Security is one of the most important features of your system.AMS360 comes with the permanent security groups: Admin, Owner, Book, Exec, Rep, S247Admin, and S247User that allow access to the system elements (found in the Secured Items List) required by most job positions within your agency. If desired, up to 93 additional security groups (for a total of 100) can be created to further customize system access.

You can also use Security Group Setup to secure certain sections by employee in the following forms; Company Setup, Employee Setup, and Customer Setup. 

For example, if you want an employee to have access to the Employee's License Information you can set the access level to Full Access and if you don't want them to have access to the Security sections you can set the access No Access.

 

All users must have full access to the Home Center to be able to log in to AMS360. If the Home Center is set to No Access, then the user will receive Access Denied when attempting to log in, even if they have full access to other centers.

For a printable Excel spreadsheet that compares access levels for each permanent security group, see Secured Items.

  1. Open the Administration Center.
  2. On the General menu, select Security Group Setup.
 

You must have Admin or Owner level privileges to access Security Group Setup.

AMS360 contains the following permanent security groups.

ADMIN

Administrative duties; system setup.

Benefits

Provides access to Benefits features. Permissions are patterned after the Customer Service Representative (CSR) security group.

 

This group does not display unless you have the optional Benefits package.

BOOK

Bookkeeper; accounting and financial.

CSR

Customer service representative; sales and service.

EXEC

Account executive; insurance sales.

OWNER

Agency owner or manager; able to access all system functions.

S247Admin

Service 24/7 administrator.

S247User

Service 24/7 user.

PL Rating

PL Rating Customer Service Representative

Menu items, links and button controls are among the actions or 'tasks' that can be secured in AMS360. The 'states' of security for these tasks are as follows.

Full Access

No restrictions on access or available actions.

View Only

Can view the task but cannot make changes to the data.

No Access

The task item (menu, link, button, etc.) is not visible to the user.

Current User View Only

Data displayed is restricted to information concerning the current logged in user only.

Each of the permanently defined roles in AMS 360 is associated with a set of privileges or access rights within the system. The expression of these rights and privileges is accomplished by hiding menus, buttons, forms or options in the user display of those employees to whom access is not granted.

Example Sam Jones, who is assigned in Employee Setup to the Executive authorization role, will see different buttons and menus when he logs in to AMS 360 than Fred Smith, who is assigned to the Owner authorization role.

 

See the Creating Security Groups section later in this topic for information on setting up additional security groups.

Access rights for permanent security groups cannot be edited or deleted. Actions available in Edit mode for permanent groups are as follows.

Active

Clear the Active check box to inactivate a particular permanent security group when it is not needed by your agency.

 

All permanent security groups can be inactivated except the Admin group. This group is always active.

Employee Assignments

Add or remove employees to the group, as desired.

The Security Groups grid lists all security groups in the system. Click New (or Edit) on the Security Groups section menu to setup a new security group or edit a non- permanent group. Click Delete on the section menu to delete a non-permanent security group. You can also in-activate a non-permanent and permanent security group. When finished, click Add (or Update). The updated information appears in the associated grid. To add multiple entries, repeat this procedure.

 

To make the security groups easier to find and work with, you can sort, and filter by the following title bars/columns: Permanent, Group Name,  and Description.

Permanent

Displays an "X" for the nine permanent security groups that come with AMS360. The permanent security groups are:

  • Benefits
  • EXEC
  • CSR
  • ADMIN
  • OWNER
  • PL Rating
  • BOOK
  • S247User

Group Name

The name of the group (e.g., Owner, Book, Exec, "User Specified").

Description

Description of the group.

 

When adding groups, use this field for comments about the access rights of the group. For example, "Can edit customer and policy, access reports and view company setup only".

Active

The check box is selected when a group is active. Clear the check box to inactivate the security group.

If the Active check box is cleared, upon Save the Include check boxes in the Employee Assignment section are cleared, thereby removing all assigned employees from the group. See the Employee Assignment section later in this topic for more information.

Displays all items in the system that are subject to security. Define the security group as desired.

Feature

Displays the location in the system where the task is accessed.

Group

Displays the name of the group.

 

When setting up new security groups, Vertafore recommends you sort the Secured Items List by group. Items in a group are tasks that are similar in nature and need to be considered when setting up access.

Task

Identifies the function or control subject to secure.

Access

Click on the field to display a list of access options. Your choices are:

  • Full Access
  • View Only
  • No Access
  • Current User View Only

Lists all employees in the system. Select the Include check box to the left of an employee name to assign that employee to the selected security group.

 

An employee can be assigned to multiple security groups.

 

Include

Select the Include check box to include the employee in the selected security group.

Name

Displays the employee name with a link to Employee Setup for the selected employee.

Title

Displays the job title for the employee from Employee Setup.

Status

Displays the status of the employee in Employee Setup. The possible status codes are:

  • A: Active
  • I: Inactive
  • R: Retired

Users assigned to a newly created security group will not be affected by the changes until they exit AMS360 and log on again.

  1. Click New on the Security Group section menu to create a new group, without using an existing group as a template.

  2. Type in a Group Name and Description.

  3. The Secured Item List section contains all of the Tasks that can be secured for the new security group. No Access is the default for all tasks in the list. To assign tasks to the new security group, click the Access field on any tasks you wish to enable and choose Full Access or View Only, when available.

  4. Select the Include check box in the Employee Assignment section for those employees you wish to assign to the new group.

  5. Click Add on the Security Groups section menu.

  6. Select File > Save to save the data and remain in the form or File > Save & Close to save and exit the form.

An alternative method of adding security groups to AMS360 is to Copy an existing group, give it a new name and description and then adjust the access permissions as desired. To do this:

  1. Select the grid row in the Security Groups grid to be copied.

  2. Select File > Copy Security Group.

  3. Type in the desired Group Name and Description. Make sure the Active check box is selected.

  4. The Access column in the Secured Item List section matches the group you copied from. The access level on any item can be changed by clicking in the Access field and selecting the desired option.

  5. Use the Employee Assignment section to assign the desired employees to the group.

  6. Click Add on the Security Groups section menu.

  7. Select File > Save to save the data and remain in the form or File > Save & Close to save and exit the form.

The Benefits group cannot be copied. Following the above instructions with the Benefits row highlighted returns a message explaining that you cannot copy this group.

A security group can be deleted after it is added and before it is saved. If you have already saved it, you have the option of changing the status to Inactive.

  1. From the list, select the security group (not saved) that you want to remove and click Delete. A message appears asking you to confirm the deletion. Click Yes. The security group disappears from the list.

  2. When you are finished deleting security groups click the Save or Save and Close icon.

Keep the following information in mind regarding employee authorizations and security access in AMS360:

  • In most cases, a user who is authorized to access a data entry form has access to all sections of the form.
  • Help topics are open to all users.
  • If modifying an existing group, user's assigned to that group inherit the new security when they launch the next data entry form or center. That is, if you are logged into AMS360 and an administrator modifies your security group, the changes take effect when you go to the next data entry form or center.
  • If creating a new group, user's assigned to that group do not see any security changes until they exit the system and log back in.
  • If the Security Group Setup form and the Employee Setup form are both in edit mode at the same time, the last form to be saved overrides the other form. 

Example: When both forms are open, and an employee security change is made on the Employee Setup form and saved, but this change is not made for this employee on the Security Group Setup form and saved, then the end result is no security change is made for the employee.

Reason: The Security Group Setup form with no security change for the employee was the last saved.

If you change security options, the affected user must exit AMS360 and log back in before the security updates are applied.

For a visual overview, see Security in AMS360.

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