Each user is assigned a category, a role, and a level - these determine what the user can do.  Each user also has a login name and password and various other settings discussed below. Users are set up and maintained via Administration|Users.

User Groups can also be created via Administration|Groups. These are used only to allow messages to be sent to multiple users and cannot be used to set categories and rolls for groups of users.

Categories
The system comes with four, administrator, clinician, nurse and reception - but more can be added using Administration|Lookups|User Types. A user can belong to more that one category - ie it is quite logical for someone to be both a clinician and an administrator.

Administrators get an extra 'Administration' entry in the top menu line which allows access to the various administration functions. In addition, the following other functions are made available to Administrators (and are not available to non-administrators):

• Customers|Accounts Check
• Customers|Information Merge
• Patients|Information Merge
• Products|Information Edit, Delete, Copy, Export, Import

Only users set as clinicians are displayed in the 'Clinician' pull-down list shown on various screens. Note that as well as setting all vets as clinicians, it may be appropriate to set some some nursing staff as clinicians.

Roles
The role defines what the user can do. The system comes with only one, administrator, who can do everything - but more can be added using Administration|Roles.  A user can have zero, one or more roles. If the user has no roles, then they will be able to see everything but will be unable to create, change or delete anything (and will receive an 'Access is denied' error message if they try).

Each role can have zero or more 'authorities'.  A complete set comes with the system, but if necessary these can be maintained using Administration|Authorities. The authorities are split into areas with a create, save (ie modify), and delete for each area.

For example for Customer there are:

 Customer All Acts Authorities  (which includes all the following)
                 Customer Adjustment Authorities
                 Customer Alert Authorities
                 Customer Balance Authorities
                 Customer Charges Authorities
                 Customer Charges Items Authorities
                 Customer Document Authorities
                 Customer Estimation Authorities
                 Customer Note Authorities
                 Customer Party Authorities
                 Customer Payment Authorities
                 Customer Refund Authorities

Thus, potentially one can have very fine grain control.

It is also possible to create a role that can create and save everything, but delete nothing. You may want to use this to prevent anyone except the administrators from deleting things.

Levels
Each user has a 'level' from 0 to 9. Reports also have a level. A user cannot run a report with a level higher than their own.

Login
All users have a Login Name and a Password. Note that:

1. A normal user (ie not an administrator) cannot change their own password - this must be done for them by an administrator.
2. There is no block in the system against multiple people logging on to the system at the same time with the same Login Name - that is if you choose to operate with logins that reflect functions (such as reception, pharmacy, and nurse) rather than names, then there will be no problem with multiple people logging on as 'reception' at the same time. However, in this environment there will be less tracking of who did what since a number of different individuals will be using the same login name.

Names and Descriptions
All users have a name and a description. The name can be anything, eg GB, George Brown, or Dr George Brown.  However, there is benefit in using short names (like GB), particularly for clinicians, because it makes it easier to quickly enter the clinician. This is particularly easy if each clinician's name starts with a different letter. If you are using short names, then the user's description should be set to the full name, eg Dr George Brown or even Dr George Brown BSc(Vetbiol), BVMS(Hons). This can then be displayed on forms and certificates.

Colours
All users have a 'colour' which determines how their names are highlighted on certain screens - notably the Scheduling and Work List screens. By default it is black on white. Different colours are really only necessary for clinicians since it is only clinician names that are highlighted.