On occasion, it is possible that someone logged into Athennian is seeing different information on an Entity from what another individual is seeing.
Most often, this indicates that the person seeing less has not been granted access to view that specific data.
When this scenario does arise, an Administrator will need to review the Access configuration of those impacted individuals. The typical solution is usually to update the data available in the appropriate Access Group to contain all necessary Affiliation records.
Symptoms of the Issue
There are many ways that this scenario might present itself in your specific Athennian environment, but some of the more common examples include:
- "When I look at Entity X, I can see all the Principals and Shareholders on the Overview page, but my colleague cannot see the Principals and Shareholders."
- "I just added a new Principal to an Entity record, but when the client logs in with their Read-Only Role, they cannot see the new Principal."
- "We've been doing a lot of Securities Transaction updates in Ownership, but our CFO cannot see these new transactions."
Explanation
The Access Module was intentionally designed to be able to restrict access to specific data. Commonly known as an "Ethical Wall," this structure creates a virtual barrier to block information from different users of Athennian.
For example, the team responsible for managing all Entities will often require full access to all data. However, the individuals in a specific region or internal team would only require access to that region or team's Entities and People records.
To accomplish this, all Entities and People records will first be added to the main Default or Production Access Group. Then the specific Entities will be shared to the associated Restricted Access Group.
So if the Affiliations (Principals, Shareholders, Contacts, etc.) for each Entity are not also added to each Restricted Access Group, that data will not be viewable by those individuals set up with Restricted Access.
This also means that when changes are made to an Entity, it is key that these new Affiliations are also shared with the Restricted Access Group.
Investigation
The first step to correcting these issues is to confirm what access these individuals should have:
- Should the individual who is missing information, be allowed to see that information?
-
Should everyone assigned to that Access Group see the same information, or is this specific individual different?
Assuming that every individual assigned to that Access Group should see the missing data, then add the Entity or People records to the appropriate Restricted Access Group using one of the options detailed below.
Note: To maintain consistency of complex Security structures, it is recommended that these updates are investigated by a designated Athennian Administrator for your organization.
Correction
Once the review has confirmed that this data can be shared with everyone in the Restricted Access Group, the Access Group can be updated with the appropriate data.
Update Available Data in the Access Group
- Navigate to the Access Module (only Administrators will have this icon on the left)
- Click on the Access Group tab on the left
- A list of all Access Groups will appear, click to open the appropriate Restricted Access Group
- The current sets of related data will appear, note that the Entities and People data are stored on separate tabs
- Click the Add button in the top right, and select Entity or Person
- Use the Search bar to find the appropriate record(s)
- Click the Checkbox to select the records to add, note that multiple records can be selected
- Click Select in the bottom right corner to complete the update
Maintain Access Groups Moving Forward
To avoid this issue recurring in the future, it is recommended to update Access Groups after new Affiliations are added to an Entity.
When a new Principal, Shareholder, Contact, Agent, or other Affiliation is added to an Entity, that Entity or Person record must be Shared to the appropriate Access Group.
This update does not require Administrator Access and can be quickly completed from the Entity or People search screen:
- In the Entities or People screen, search for the new Affiliation record
- Click the Checkbox to the left of the record, or select many records to add multiple relationships to the same Access Group
- Click the Action button at the top of the list
- From the dropdown list, select Share
- A list of all Access Groups will appear, click to open the appropriate Restricted Access Group
- A confirmation window will appear showing the information being added
- Click the Assign button to add the record to the Access Group
Note: When adding Entities using this method, there is an option to "Include All Affiliated Records (People & Entities)" which can be very helpful when adding a brand new Entity to an Access Group. Selecting this checkbox will automatically add all Principals, Shareholders, Contacts, etc. to the same Access Group at once.