Groups

Contents

• Overview
• What are Groups?
• Match This Group
• Adding a Group
• Modifying a Group
• Removing a Group
• Modifying Modem Settings

Overview

Groups allow you to organize accounts into logical groupings, and every account must belong to a group. Additionally, groups determine basic services that accounts may use. If your account has been given permission to administer groups, the Groups tab is displayed below the kinetic Manager heading and you can click it to start working with groups.

The layout of the Groups screen follows the standard kinetic Manager screen layout. For a general description of the layout, refer to the Screen Layout section of the kinetic Manager Overview.

What are Groups?

Groups form a tree-like hierarchy, with each group having a single parent group above it. The topmost group in every organization is represented by /your-organization-name:/ in the kinetic Manager application and is referred to as the "organization's root group", or "org-root group" for short. This group is the starting point for the creation of all groups for your organization.

As you create groups for your organization, give thought to how you want to organize and manage your accounts. Exactly what groups, how many (or few) of them you create, and the parent of each group is up to you.

For example, assume you are an admin for NetAce High School. You intend to create accounts for the school's staff and students. You could begin by creating a group for both of these. The parent of each would be /YourOrg:/ (the org-root group). The school's staff consists of school administrators, support personnel, facilities personnel and faculty. Each of these could be created as a group. Each would have as its parent the staff group. Additionally, the support personnel group could have child groups of clerical, ESL, and teaching assistants. These three groups would have as their parent group the support personnel group. The students group could be organized by grade. Child groups named Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth could be created under the students group. If represented as a tree, these groups appear like the following:

                                    /YourOrg:/
                                    |
             +---------------------------------------------------+
             |                                                   |
             staff                                               students
             |                                                   |
+------------+----------------+----------+             +---------+----------+
|            |                |          |             |         |          |
facilities   school-admins    support    faculty       Tenth     Eleventh   Twelfth
                              |
                    +---------+------+ 
                    |         |      |
                    clerical  ESL    TA

Within kinetic Manager, groups are displayed like directory structures and are typically listed in alphabetical order within lists. For example, kinetic Manager would display the example groups shown above like the following:

/YourOrg:/
/YourOrg:/staff
/YourOrg:/staff/facilities
/YourOrg:/staff/faculty
/YourOrg:/staff/school-admins
/YourOrg:/staff/support
/YourOrg:/staff/support/clerical
/YourOrg:/staff/support/ESL
/YourOrg:/staff/support/TA
/YourOrg:/students
/YourOrg:/students/Eleventh
/YourOrg:/students/Tenth
/YourOrg:/students/Twelfth

In addition to organization of accounts, groups also allow you to set group permissions that affect the basic services that accounts may use. For example, you can set group permissions that allow accounts to set e-mail forwarding addresses and e-mail autoreply. Group permissions are described in the Modify Group section of this document.

Match This Group

The primary screen for the Groups tab lists the groups that you may select. Tasks which use the Group list are displayed in the task menu beneath the "Match This Group" title bar. Tasks which do not use the Group list are displayed in the menu bar above the title. For example, you may click Add Group without selecting a group from the list, but you must select a group before you click Modify Group.

Adding a Group

To add a group, do the following:

1. Click on Add Group under the Groups tab. The Add Group screen appears.
2. Enter the Group Name. The name can contain upper and lower case letters, numbers, spaces, and any other keyboard character except the forward slash (/), colon, and dollar sign. It is recommended that the name be short but descriptive.
3. Select a single parent group from the Parent Group list. The selected group is the parent group, and the group you are creating is a child of this parent.
4. Click the Continue button. The information you entered redisplays in the Add Group Confirmation screen.
5. If everything is correct, click on the Yes button to add the new group. If you want to cancel creating the new group, click the Cancel button. If the information you entered is incorrect, click the No button; the Add Group screen redisplays and you can make the necessary corrections.

Important: The newly added group does not have group permissions enabled or other settings by default. Use the Modify Group task to set the options for maximum accounts, e-mail expiration, e-mail forwarding, and e-mail autoreply.

Modifying a Group

Modify Group allows you to change the name of a group and various settings.

The Group Name section contains the following options:

Group Name: The name of the group, preceded by the organization name and any parent groups.

Maximum Accounts: It specifies the maximum number of accounts that can exist in this group and its child groups. Leave the field empty to remove the limit on the number of accounts. If the Maximum Accounts setting is available for your organization, it will only be displayed for first level groups (i.e., the first level of groups in your organization).

Important: The Maximum Accounts setting may be overidden by a maximum number of accounts setting for your organization. kinetic Manager displays an error if you try to specify a value that is higher than the organization setting. For assistance with the organization value, please contact MOREnet.

Expire E-mail: It specifies the number of days that messages may exist in the mailboxes of accounts in this group before the messages are automatically deleted. Only messages in the Inbox and Trash folders are automatically deleted. This setting only affects enabled or disabled accounts--e-mail messages of expired or removed accounts are not automatically deleted. Leave the field empty to not expire e-mail (i.e., mail is never deleted automatically by age), specify 0 to inherit the expiration value from the parent group, or specify a value from 1 to 365. For example, if you specify 5 in this setting, any e-mail that is 5 days old (or older) is automatically deleted from the mailboxes of the accounts in this group. If subgroups have a value of 0, the accounts in those subgroups will be subject to the same mail expiration.

A zero value is the default setting until an administrator changes the setting for a group. This allows an administrator to set the expiration setting in a top-level group and the child groups automatically inherit the parent group's setting. If you specify a zero value and the parent group also has a zero value, the inheritance continues up the group structure until an empty or non-zero value is reached. To assist you, the Note above the setting displays the inherited value and group from which the value is inherited if you specify a zero value.

Note: If you are unsure about the the location of the group in the group structure, review the path that is shown next to the Group Name setting; somewhere in this directory-like path you will find the name of the group from which the value is inherited.

There are three Group Permissions which can be enabled or disabled:

• Use My Account tab to change settings for e-mail forwarding. Checking this box allows the account to forward e-mail which it receives to another e-mail address. The account may only forward to one e-mail address. The option to retain a copy of the e-mail in the accounts inbox is also made available.
• Use My Account tab to change settings for e-mail forwarding with multiple addresses. Checking this box allows the account to forward e-mail which it receives to other e-mail addresses. Up to 12 e-mail addresses may be specified. The option to retain a copy of the e-mail in the accounts inbox is also available.
• Use My Account tab to change e-mail autoreply settings. Checking this box allows the account to automatically send an autoreply e-mail message back to the sender of any e-mail message the account receives. The body of the autoreply may be specified by the account holder.

To modify a group, do the following:

1. First select the group to modify from the Group list on the Match This Group screen. This list displays all groups that you have administrative permissions to modify.
2. Click on Modify Group. The Modify Group screen appears.
3. To change the group's name, click in the text box next to Group Name and modify it.
4. If you have the ability to set group permissions, a section titled Group Permissions is displayed with the available permission options.
5. Modify the group permission settings by selecting or clearing the check boxes as appropriate for this group. Note that changing group permissions affects all accounts that are members of the group. For more information see the note below.
6. Click Continue. The Modify Group confirmation screen displays.
7. If the group modifications are correct, click Yes. If you want to cancel the modification of the group, click Cancel. If the information you specified is incorrect, click the No button; the Modify Group screen redisplays and you can make the necessary corrections.

Notes about Group Permissions

Modify Group affects the permissions for a group, and in turn these apply to each account that is a member of the group. If a group has a permission and it is removed, something must happen to the existing information that account holders may have specified for options related to the permission.

If a permission is added, or a permission is upgraded, the account holder sees additional options in My Account. For example, if a group has the Use My Account tab to change e-mail forwarding settings permission, and it is upgraded to Use My Account tab to change e-mail forwarding settings with multiple e-mail addresses, the account holder may now specify up to 12 addresses in My Account. If the account holder had specified an e-mail address for e-mail forwarding, it is retained and the account holder may now specify more addresses. Upgrades and additions to group permissions do not trigger automatic e-mail messages from kinetic Manager that detail the changes to group permissions.

If a permission is removed or downgraded, information in the database may need to be adjusted for an account, and adjustments may trigger automatic e-mail messages that detail the changes to group permissions. The triggering of e-mail messages and adjustment to account information follows these rules:

• If the e-mail autoreply group permission is changed from enabled to disabled, any account that is a member of the group AND has enabled e-mail autoreply under the My Account tab is notified via e-mail that the permission is disabled. If the account has e-mail autoreply disabled when the group permission is changed from enabled to disabled, a notification is NOT sent because the feature wasn't being used. Note that if an autoreply message body is specified before the group permission is changed from enabled to disabled, the message body is saved with the account's information in case the e-mail autoreply group permission is enabled for the group at a later date. If the group permission is enabled at a later date, the message body is available for use but the autoreply option under the My Account tab is disabled so that it doesn't begin replying to messages unless the account holder enables it.
• If the e-mail forward group permission is downgraded from multiple to single, AND the account holder had specified multiple e-mail forward addresses, all of the e-mail forward settings are removed. The account holder AND all forward e-mail addresses receive an e-mail indicating that the permission is removed and the settings are removed.
• If the e-mail forward group permission is downgraded from multiple to single, and the account holder had specified ONE e-mail forward addresses, the setting is retained and an automatic e-mail is NOT triggered. Even though the account could have specified more than one forward address, the feature wasn't being used that way and it makes sense to retain the setting for the one e-mail address and not warn the account holder about it.
• If the e-mail forward multiple group permission is changed from enabled to disabled, the e-mail forward single group permission is disabled, AND the user did NOT specify forward multiple options in the My Account tab, an e-mail notification is NOT sent because the feature wasn't being used.
• If the e-mail forward single group permission is changed from enabled to disabled, the e-mail forward multiple group permission is disabled, AND the user did NOT specify any forward single options in My Account, an e-mail notification is NOT sent because the feature wasn't being used.

Removing a Group

Remove Group allows administrators to remove existing groups. To remove a group, you must first select the group to remove from the Group list on the Match This Group screen. Note that all accounts in a group must be moved to another group (or the accounts must be removed and expunged if they are no longer needed) before you can remove the group. In addition, the group cannot be removed if it contains child groups. If accounts are still members of the group or the group has child groups, you receive an error message. To remove a group, do the following:

1. Select the group to remove in the Groups list.
2. Click Remove Group. The Remove Group Confirmation screen displays.
3. Confirm the removal of the group. If the correct group is listed, click the Yes button. If you have selected the wrong group, click No.

Modifying Modem Settings

Modify Modem Settings allows you to modify the modem pool settings for the selected group.

Note: Modem pools are not offered as a new service to MOREnet members.

Follow these steps:

1. Select a group in the Groups list.
2. Click Modify Modem Settings.
3. In the Modem Usage Limit box, type the number of hours per month that the modem pool may be used by accounts within this group. Type an integer value greater than or equal to zero.
4. In the Modem Time Limit box, type the maximum number of minutes that a modem may be used per call. Type an integer value greater than or equal to zero.
5. Select a modem pool from the Modem Pool list. Accounts within the group will have the ability to authenticate to this modem pool; the Modem Usage Limit and Modem Time Limit settings apply to the selected modem pool. You may only select one item in the list. To allow authentication to all of the listed modem pools, select the Global option.
6. Click Continue.
7. Confirm your changes. If they are correct, click Yes to save them. Otherwise, click No and modify the settings.