Managing Exchange Teams

Persons working with EFS Secure Exchange may be holding different access rights for the files to be exchanged. These access rights are managed by assigning the respective user teams to so-called exchange teams.

When you prepare the file exchange via EFS Secure Exchange, your first task will be to create exchange teams with the requisite rights configurations and assign user teams to exchange teams. This procedure is described in this chapter.

Depending on the situation, additional steps may be necessary:

• Ideally, the persons involved already have EFS accounts and have been assigned to completely configured user teams. If this is not yet the case, create user accounts according to the instructions in the “EFS Survey” manual and assign these to appropriate user teams.

• Normally, you have already granted the user teams access to one or more areas of EFS when creating the teams. Check this setting:

  • If you want to grant a team access to the File exchange menu in the EFS Survey admin area, then the team will need the access right to “EFS Survey”, i.e. it needs the ACL right “area_www”.

  • If you merely want to grant a team access to the separate fm login, then the team should have only the access right to “EFS Secure Exchange”, i.e. it should have the ACL right “area_fm”.

• If you do not want all the members of an existing user team to have the same access rights to the files to be exchanged, it may be necessary to create additional user teams and to reassign the members. An example of such a case can be found here.

Viewing and Editing Exchange Teams

The exchange teams are managed via the Users → Exchange teams menu (previously: Staff → Exchange teams).

When opening the Users → Exchange teams menu, the overview of the existing exchange teams will automatically be displayed. The following edit options are available in the “Actions” column:

• Edit: You can change the name of the respective team.

• Change rights of this team: This function allows you to assign user teams to the exchange team and to define their rights within the context of EFS Secure Exchange.

• List members of this exchange team: Clicking on this icon prompts a pop-up window that lists the members grouped by user teams. It also lists their e-mail addresses and their rights within the context of EFS Secure Exchange.

• Delete: The team is deleted after a confirmation prompt.

Creating a New Exchange Team

In order to create a new exchange team you need the right “exchange_teams” as well as sufficient edit rights for the teams to be selected.

1. Click on the Create exchange team button in the Exchange teams menu.
   

   

2. Enter the name into the “Team name” field. You can use the characters a-z, 0-9, _ and -.

3. In the select box labeled “Members with upload rights” you can specify one or more teams whose members are to have read and write rights for their own files only. Select multiple teams while holding down the CTRL key.
   You do not already need to specify teams when creating the exchange team: You can always assign user teams to an exchange team at a later stage. The steps required are explained in the following chapter.

4. In the select box labeled “Members with change rights” you can specify one or more teams whose members will be allowed to change the files of all team members. Select multiple teams while holding down the CTRL key.

5. Confirm your entries by clicking on Create team.

Assigning Teams and Rights Administration

In EFS, users are assigned rights according to their team affiliation. With regard to EFS Secure Exchange, this means that instead of assigning individual users to an exchange team you assign access rights for the files of
an exchange team to one or more user teams. You may choose from different rights configurations:

• Upload right: Equivalent to the right “read” to the exchange team. The members of a team with upload rights may upload and download files. They may, however, change or delete only their own files.

• Change right: Equivalent to the right “write” to the exchange team. The members of a team with change rights can upload and download files and may change or delete all files of their exchange team.

• If you assign the rights “read” and “write” to a user team, the members of this team will have all rights to the exchange team and all upload and change rights. However, they will be ignored for the function “Send info mail to team”. This configuration is useful, for example, for teams of project managers who are not involved in the daily operations.

In order to subsequently assign one or more user teams to an exchange team or to
change the initial settings, proceed as follows:

1. Locate the exchange team in the overview and click on the Rights icon (paragraph icon).

2. This opens the dialog for rights administration familiar from other EFS menus. Assign read and/or write rights for the respective exchange team to the desired user teams as required.

3. Confirm your selection by clicking on Change rights.

Dividing the persons involved in a project into teams holding different rights

Often, not all persons involved in a survey project are supposed to obtain the same rights for using EFS Secure Exchange. An example: The human resources department of the company “Real Estate” wants to exchange files in preparation for an employee survey. The project managers of the HR department shall be able to freely edit all files. The other persons shall be able to download all files, however, they shall be allowed to change and delete only their own files.

In order to realize an appropriate rights administration, create the following user teams and assign the persons accordingly:

1. Real Estate project managers: Persons who are granted unrestricted access.

2. Real Estate staff: Other persons who may only download and edit their own files.
   
   After that, assign different rights for the exchange team “Exchange team Real Estate” of the company to the two staff teams:
   

3. The user team “Real Estate project managers” obtains the right “write”.

4. The user team “Real Estate staff” obtains the right “read”.