The concept of security profiles in Chris21 can be the cause of some confusion, especially if you are new to the system. In essence, a security profile is a collection of Chris21 forms that user’s needs access to in order to perform their duties. The same security profile can then be assigned to multiple users if they are performing similar roles, for instance payroll officers.

I think that one of the difficulties when updating security in Chris21 is in understanding how a security profile is created. A security profile in Chris21 is basically the same as a user record. In other words, you create a security profile in much the same way as you create a new user in Chris21. This is done via the User Access (USR) form.

The main difference between a security profile and user record is the Profile flag. You check this flag to indicate that this is a master record. Note in the screenshot above that the Profile field is checked. Also note that the Security Profile field on USR is left blank. This is because this is a master record rather than a user record. It’s only when you create a user record that you use this field to assign a security profile to the user.

Once you have created the master record (essentially a blank security profile), you can then start building the security profile by adding Chris21 forms using the Privileges (ATT) form.

You can see from the screenshot above that the PAYROLL security profile has a collection of 10 forms. Any user who is assigned this profile will automatically have access to these 10 forms.

Now that the security profile has been created you can assign this to your payroll officers as show below:

There are two major benefits of using security profiles in Chris21. The first is that you can assign a security profile to multiple users without having to recreate the profile for each user. The second benefit is that if you need to update a security profile you only need to do this in one place. Simply go to the Privileges (ATT) form, find the security profile from the list of users and add or remove a form. This is much more efficient than having to update the ATT records for, say, all of your individual payroll officers.

After reading this blog have a look at how security has been setup in your system. I hope this will help to give you a better understanding of how to use security profiles in Chris21.