User, groups and roles

User

Via the link "User" the user management of OTRS can be reached. It is possible to add, change or deactivate user accounts. Also some basic setting for a user account can be adjusted, e.g. the language for the web interface or the theme.

Note

To keep the consistency of the data for OTRS it is not possible to delete a user. To deactivate a user account set it to "invalid" or "invalid-temporarily".

After a new user has been created the user must be added to one or more groups or roles. You will be redirected automatically to the screen for the group and user management when a new accounted has been created.

Groups

Every user account should at least belong to one group. The group management can bereached via the "Groups" link.

Note

To keep the consistency of the data for OTRS it is not possible to delete a group. To deactivate a group set it to "invalid" or "invalid-temporarily".

After a default installation already four groups are available in the system.

Table 5.1. Default groups after OTRS has been installed

Group Description
admin Group for the users who should have admin rights in the system. After the system has been installed only the user "root@localhost" is in this group.
faq Users in this group may create and change articles in the FAQ system. After the system has been installed no user is in this group.
stats Users in this group may access the stats module of OTRS and generate statistics. After the system has been installed only "root@localhost" belongs to this group.
users This is the group where your agents should belong to and have read and write access. If users are in this group and have write rights they can use all functions of the ticket system. After the system has been installed this group is empty.


To add a user to a group or to change the group settings of a user the link "Users <-> Groups" can be used.

A overview of all groups and users in the system is displayed in the lower part of the screen. If you want to change the group settings of a user just click on the username. To change the users in a group just click on the group that you want to change.

To setup the rights for a user very graduately there are some rights that can be set for a user account. After a default installation the follwoing rights are available.

Table 5.2. Rights in the user groups of OTRS

Right Description
ro Read only access to the tickets and entries or queues of this group.
move into Right to move tickets or entries between queues or areas that belong to this group.
create Right to create tickets or entries in the queues or areas of this group.
owner Right to update the owner of tickets or entries in queues or areas that belong to this group.
priority Right to change the priority of a ticket or entrie in queues or areas that belong to this groups.
rw Full read and write access on all tickets or entries in the queues or areas that belong to this group.


Roles

Roles are a very powerful and helpful feature to manage and change the access rights of many users very simply and quickly. On big and complex systems with many users, groups and queues this feature is very useful and helps to save time.

To explaine the advantages of the role feature imagine that you have a system with 100 users. 90 users have access to a queue called "support" that contains some sub queues. All support requests are handled through this queue. All other queues of the system are not accessible for the 90 users. The other 10 users may access all queues of the system, they are not restricted only to the support queue. they dispatch tickets, watch the raw queue and move spam messages into the "junk" queue. Some day the company opens a new department that sells products. Offerings, confirmations of offerings, bills, e.g. must be created and some of the agents in your system shall do this via OTRS. The different users have to get access to the new queues that must be created. Because it would take a long time to change the access rights for the different users manualy, roles can be created that define the different access levels. Then the users can be added to one or more roles and the user rights get for this user accounts get changed. If a new user account is created it is also possible to add this account to one or more roles.

Note

To keep the consistency of the data for OTRS it is not possible to delete a role. To deactivate a role set it to "invalid" or "invalid-temporarily".

To define the different access rights for a role the links "Roles <-> Users" or "Roles <-> Groups" can be used.