A user is a person who is authorized to book objects in the system, or who has the right to have objects booked for him or her by the administrator. There are several levels of user permissions that regulate which objects a user can view and book.
For each user, a user name and a password is selected. The administrator then needs to specify the level of authorization the person will have inside the system. A user does not need to be a specific person, but rather it can be an anonymous role that many people use to make bookings in the system.
The authorization level for each individual user is determined by the administrator when the user account is created, however it can be adjusted later on. For the administrator, there are several different ways of setting the authorization levels for the users. One way is to use the 9 authority levels to rank each individual user. The lowest authority level is then 1 and the highest level 9, with the 9th level entailing the right to view and book all objects in the system. The objects are then also ranked correspondingly so that an equal, or greater, user number is required to book an object. It is possible to choose a setting that lets users view objects even when they are not authorized to book them.
The user administration can be given another dimension through the use of “organizations” for classifying the users. Objects are then connected to organizations, and thus restricting the organization’s user to objects that are connected to their own organization. An organization does not need to be a real organization, but can be for instance a division within the company or administrative groups that are created for the sole purpose of simplifying the user administration in the booking system.
When a new organization is created, the only compulsory field is the Name. Perhaps the “organization” is the people working on a particular project or perhaps a group of students doing work experience need to be in a separate organization in order to ascertain suitable user access rights. In those cases, all that is needed is a suitable name. On the other hand, for the administration of a company with five subsidiaries containing 10 divisions each, information such as phone numbers and invoicing details may be required.
When organizational groups are in use, it is possible to give a user within the organization the status of organization administrator. This person is then authorized to book all objects that are connected to the organization and also has the right to change, remove and add new information for the objects and users that are connected to the organization. An organization administrator can thus add new objects that are to be bookable for his or her organization. For those objects to be available to other users outside the organization, approval must be given by the system administrator.
The administrator is the person that manages all the information and permissions in EZbooking. The administrator also determines the level of authorization for each user as well as which level of authorization is required to book a chosen object. The role also entails the authorization to book all objects that are available in system. The administrator can also change all settings and see and adjust all the information that has been entered into the system.