15.1. Overview

Access Permissions

Business Rule Groups control your user’s access permissions to:

• Catalogue Collections (i.e. suppliers and supplier catalogues)
• Accounting Methods and Values (i.e. financial tracking codes)
• Procurement Cards
• Default Tax Treatment (e.g. UK VAT)
• Blanket Order Maintenance

Any quantity or type of Business Rule Group (BRG) can be created, each defining different access permissions, according to your organisation’s procurement requirements. A BRG can contain permissions to all or some of the data areas listed above, although it is recommended that they are created logically and separately according to type: catalogue access only, accounting access only and PCard access only. In this way the administration and assignment of BRG’s becomes administratively much easier. You may combine access to any combination of these data areas within a single BRG if it is logical or practical to do so.

A user may be placed in multiple Business Rule Groups. Membership to more than one group is simply indicative of a user being granted additional or different access permissions.

Membership Assignment

A BRG may be assigned either to an individual user or to an organisation. If assignment is by organisation, ALL users within that organisational level will automatically be granted membership to the BRG. Furthermore, any new users created will become members based on their user profile organisation assignment. Organisational assignment is therefore a quick and maintenance free way of assigning permissions to large groups (e.g. by department) of users.

15.1.1 The Default Group

Every user who is to create or maintain requisitions must have a default account code combination assigned to them. Default account code combinations are set within a BRG which grants accounting access permissions. The user therefore obtains a default account code from their assignment to an appropriate BRG. This group is known as the user’s ‘Default Group’.

Where a default VAT code is placed in a business rule group (for example to override a user’s organisation default setting) this must also be assigned within the user’s Default Group.

Example 1: Separate Business Rule Groups

In a larger organisation, where there are many departments and users who require (or potentially require) different combinations of access permissions, it may be decided to create separate or hierarchical BRG’s to enable easy and more dynamic administration of users.

In such a scenario it is prudent, firstly, to create a number of BRG’s that give access only to catalogues. These can be called: “Catalogue - x”, where x represents the collection of catalogues selected.

Since each supplier catalogue may be contained in a separate collection, one BRG can be created for each catalogue and called (for example): “Catalogue – Widget Ltd”, “Catalogue – PC Supplies Ltd” etc. Alternatively a logical group of catalogues (e.g. all stationery suppliers) can be contained within a single collection, in which case the group could grant permission to this collection and be labelled: “Catalogues – Stationery”. The number of catalogue collections must be no greater than the number of Business Rule Groups.

Secondly, a number of BRG’s should be created to give access only to Financial Tracking Codes. These should be created according to business requirements with each one containing different permissions to different ranges of accounting values. Each group may contain a logical default account code combination and named appropriately. For example an accounting access group granting permission to all cost centres and subjective codes used by maintenance managers and containing the default cost centre value for the maintenance department (374) could be called: “Accounting – Maintenance Mgr (374)”.

A range of BRG’s granting access only to procurement cards could finally be created and named appropriately. For example:” PCards - Marketing” could be created to grant access to all cards used by the Marketing department. “PCards – Today Travel” could be created to grant access to the PCard used for the supplier Today Travel Ltd.

Finally each user can be granted membership to as many Business Rules Groups which satisfy their access requirements within PECOS P2P. In this way user profiles can be created in a more flexible and manageable administrative environment – each user being granted a bespoke procurement profile which allows them to conduct their procurement activities efficiently.

Example 2: Combined Business Rule Groups

In a small organisation containing limited organisational levels and users, it may be decided that access to financial tracking codes, catalogues and procurement cards is consistent for all users within each department.

For example, all users within the Information Technology Department require access to four IT catalogues, a range if IT related cost centres, all subjective codes, and two corporate PCards. As a solution a single BRG can be created, granting permission to the appropriately created IT Catalogue Collection, the two PCards and the required range of financial tracking code values – defining the default account code for the IT Department. This single BRG should be called: “IT Department” and be assigned to the organisation: IT Department. All users within the IT Department will have the same, standard access level.