User Groups Overview
User groups are collections of user accounts that are used to control users' access to work groups and quick documents groups.
Overview
In HotDocs Advance, user access to templates is controlled by the allocation of user groups to work groups. Users can only access templates in work groups to which their user groups are assigned. This enables you to organize users into groups with related interests and give them access to specific work groups. For example, to organize users into a user group for an organization's legal department and grant them access to legal department-specific templates.
The Manage user groups page is only visible if you are logged in to HotDocs Advance as a Site Administrator.
Common Tasks
- Create a user group
- Assign a user to a user group
- Edit a user group
- Deactivate a user group
- Assign access permissions to a work group
- Assign access permissions to a quick documents group
Workflow
You will typically create a user group after you created or imported user accounts. You can then add users to the user group and assign the user group to a work group. After you have created a user group, you may need to add or remove users.
Users in the assigned user groups may then access the templates in the work group, such as to load interviews or assemble documents using the templates. For example:
- A Work group (Employment Agreements) is created in HotDocs Advance, with six templates allocated.
- A User group (HR Department) is created in HotDocs Advance, with three users allocated.
- The HR Department user group is assigned to the Employment Agreements work group.
- All users in the HR Department user group can access the templates in the Employment Agreements work group.
Deactivating a User Group
You can deactivate a user group. If, for example, a project has ended and the team associated with that project is no longer needed, you might want to deactivate the user group associated with that team. When a user group is deactivated, users within that group will be prevented from accessing any work groups the user group is part of. Deactivating a user group does not delete it or the users within it, so it can be reactivated at any time if needed.
Everyone User Group
The Everyone user group is a user group containing every user account created within Advance. It is a default user group, named Everyone, created by Advance during installation. When you add new users, Advance automatically adds them to the Everyone group. The purpose of the Everyone user group is to make it simpler to give template group access to all users.
If you upgrade from an earlier version of Advance and have your own user group named Everyone, Advance will migrate that user group to a new group, named Everyone_old.
Related Common Tasks