AgilePoint NX System Administrator (credentials, settings, and roles)

The AgilePoint NX system administrator is the primary custodian of AgilePoint Server installation and maintenance tasks. This user is required during installation, upgrades, managing server on a daily basis, assigning others permission to use the system, monitoring alerts, etc.

This function is usually fulfilled by a person from the customer's IT team who manages other servers in your environment. Once the installation is complete, a system administrator is required part time. AgilePoint Server typically does not need a full time administrator.

Good to Know

Other system administrator types covered in this section — Tenant Administrator (person), Database Administrator, and Network Administrator — are all human roles in an organization. That is, these are functions that human users serve, rather than administrator accounts, roles, or access controls within AgilePoint NX. All of the credentials for these administrator types are covered on this page. The subsequent pages — Tenant Adminstrator, Database Administrator, and Network Administrator — represent ways that these credentials can be divided among the responsiblities of human administrator users. Thus, there is some duplication of content for these pages. However, subsequent pages also cover some privileges for AgilePoint NX on external systems that these people manage, such as the database and SharePoint.
These administrator types have similar names, and they are easy to confuse:
- The AgilePoint NX System Administrator is a person who is responsible for several administrator accounts and roles. In most cases, there is one primary AgilePoint NX System Administrator, but this is not a technical limitation.
- Tenant Administrator (capitalized) is a master administrator setting for the NX Portal. There can be only one Tenant Administrator.
  The Tenant Administrator is assigned on the Tenant screen.
- A tenant administrator (small letters) is a person who is resonsible for one AgilePoint Server tenant. In multi-tenant environments, each tenant can have its own tenant administrator, but this is not a technical limitation.
  The tenant administrator (person) usually has the Tenant Administrator setting, as well as other security roles. However, the privileges are the decision of an organization and not a technical limitation.
- The AgilePoint System Account is a set of credentials for managing AgilePoint Server. There can be only one AgilePoint System Account. In most cases, one human user is assigned these credentials. The names for the System Account and Service Account, especially, are often confused.
- The AgilePoint Service Account is a set of credentials AgilePoint Server uses to connect with other systems. There can be only one AgilePoint Service Account. Only the AgilePoint Server software uses these credentials, and they are not assigned to a human user. However, the AgilePoint NX System Administrator is usually responsible for maintaining these credentials. The names for the System Account and Service Account, especially, are often confused.
- Administrator is a security role on the NX Portal. Any number of users can be assigned the Administrator role.

AgilePoint System Account

The AgilePoint System Account is the priamary administrator account for AgilePoint Server, especially the AgilePoint Server Configuration Utility and the Windows services associated with the AgilePoint server-side components.

By default, the AgilePoint System Account is assumed to use the same credentials as other administrator tasks on the AgilePoint Server machine, such as the Windows administrator account. However, for security purposes, AgilePoint recommends you separate these credentials after AgilePoint Server is installed.

When AgilePoint Server is installed, the credentials for the AgilePoint System Account are the same as the AgilePoint Service Account. The purpose of this is to simplify the AgilePoint Server installation. However, for security purposes, AgilePoint recommends you separate these credentials after AgilePoint Server is installed.

Note: The names and purposes of the AgilePoint System Account and AgilePoint Service Account are similar, and they are often confused, even by AgilePoint employees. If there is a discrepancy about the purposes of these accounts, this document provides the official explanation from AgilePoint.

AgilePoint Server Configuration System tab — Figure: AgilePoint Server Configuration > System tab

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions and Configuration

System	Permissions	Notes
AgilePoint Server Machines	Local administrator ServiceLogon Member of the following groups: Administrator Performance Monitor Users IIS_IUSRS	This user account will also be used to initially sign in to AgilePoint NX. If you are installing AgilePoint Server on a Domain Controller, this cannot be a local administrator account.
AgilePoint Server service instances	Create an instance Delete an instance Configure AgilePoint Server Start or stop an instance	These privileges are for the AgilePoint System Administrator account. Do not confuse the Administrator role with the AgilePoint System Account. The Administrator role only has administrator access rights within the AgilePoint NX Portal. The AgilePoint System Account is a server-side administrator.
AgilePoint NX Portal tenants	Provision a tenant Set the Tenant Administrator for a tenant.	These privileges are for the AgilePoint System Administrator account. Do not confuse the Administrator role with the AgilePoint System Account. The Administrator role only has administrator access rights within the AgilePoint NX Portal. The AgilePoint System Account is a server-side administrator.

How To Create or Change This Account

The AgilePoint System Account is created when you install AgilePoint NX.
To change the AgilePoint System Account, refer to How Do I Change the Credentials for AgilePoint Administrator Accounts?.

AgilePoint Service Account

The AgilePoint Service Account is the set of authentication credentials AgilePoint Server uses to connect to other systems, such as the database server.

The AgilePoint Service Account is a "headless" account, which means that a person is not associated with the credentials. Instead the AgilePoint Server software or AgilePoint NX system is represented with these credentials. In other words, the AgilePoint NX System Administrator manages the credentials for the AgilePoint Service Account, but the (human) adminsitrator does not use these credentials to authenticate to any system.

Note: In the AgilePoint UI, the Service Account is referred to as Impersonation.

Figure: AgilePoint Server Manager screen

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions and Configuration

System	Permissions	Notes
AgilePoint Server Machines	Local administrator ServiceLogon Member of the following groups: Administrator Performance Monitor Users IIS_IUSRS	This user account will also be used to initially sign in to AgilePoint NX. If you are installing AgilePoint Server on a Domain Controller, this cannot be a local administrator account.
Database	db_owner privileges	During installation, AgilePoint requires db_owner privileges in SQL Server to create the tables required on the database. For security purposes, after finishing the AgilePoint Server configuration, you can remove the AgilePoint Server service account from the db_owner role in order to disallow the Create table privilege. Instead you can add this user to the db_datareader and db_datawriter role memberships. Please note that when updating the database schema in the future (e.g. for an upgrade), you will need to add this account back to the db_owner role in order for the database schema to be updated It is recommended to configure permissions for the SQL database account for AgilePoint, which grants INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and SELECT, … by schema (namespace), ONLY on AgilePoint tables at the database level, instead of using the generic dbo schema to restrict access.
SharePoint	Member of the following groups: SharePoint Farm Administrators (applies to SharePoint Farm only) Site Collection Administrators	When AgilePoint Server is installed, by default these privileges are associated with the AgilePoint Service Account. However, for security purposes, AgilePoint recommends separating this account from the AgilePoint Service Account to create a unique SharePoint account for the AgilePoint system. This account is sometimes referred to as the SharePoint impersonator. AgilePoint recognizes that adding this user to the SharePoint Site Collection Administrators group does not follow the least-privileged account best practice. If you want to make sure you are following this best practice, make sure this account has at least has Contribute rights on each SharePoint site where Lists, Document Libraries or Form Libraries are associated to an AgilePoint process. Usually, it's enough to add that this account to the [Site Collection Name] Members SharePoint Group. However, you must: Make sure that group has Contribute rights on SharePoint. Make sure inheritance is not broken on sub-sites as that might prevent that Impersonator account to access those sub-sites – it would have to be added to the Members role of each of those sub-sites that break inheritance with their parent site.
Data Services Machine	Local administrator ServiceLogon	This machine may be the same as the AgilePoint Server machine.

How To Create or Change This Account

The AgilePoint Service Account is created when you install AgilePoint NX.
To change the AgilePoint Service Account, refer to How Do I Change the Credentials for AgilePoint Administrator Accounts?.

Tenant Administrator (Setting) Permissions

The Tenant Administrator is a special setting that can only be assigned to one AgilePoint ID in an instance of AgilePoint NX Portal. In the NX Portal, this user is referred to as the Tenant Administrator.

By default, in AgilePoint NX OnDemand (public cloud) the Tenant Administrator is the user who submits the initial request for the tenant. In AgilePoint NX OnPremises or AgilePoint NX PrivateCloud, the AgilePoint NX System Administrator (AgilePoint System Account) assigns the Tenant Administrator when they provision the tenant.

Figure: Tenant Information tab (Settings)

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions

System	Permissions	Notes
AgilePoint NX Portal tenant	Receives e-mail notifications if an update or an exception occurs on the tenant. Has all access rights for the Administrator role. Can change the access rights for the Administrator role.	An AgilePoint NX Portal instance can have only one Administrator of this type. Only the current Tenant Administrator can change the Tenant Administrator setting. For more information, refer to How Do I Change the Tenant Administrator?

How To Create or Change the Tenant Administrator

By default, in OnPremises or Private Cloud environments, the Tenant Administrator is assigned to the AgilePoint System Account when you install AgilePoint NX.
By default, in OnDemand (public cloud) environments, the Tenant Administrator is assigned to the first user added to an environment when you sign up for AgilePoint NX environment.
To change the Tenant Administrator, refer to How Do I Change the Credentials for AgilePoint Administrator Accounts?.

Administrators (role)

Administrators is the common system administrator role for the AgilePoint NX Portal. Any registered AgilePoint NX user can be assigned the Administrators role. There is no limit to the number of users who can be assigned the Administrators role. The Administrators role is subordinate to the Tenant Administrator. In addition to being master users for an AgilePoint NX Portal tenant, users with the Administrators role also serve as the Global Permissions Manager for apps created in App Builder.

Note: The Administrators role is different from the AgilePoint NX System Administrator. The AgilePoint NX System Administrator is one person, independent of any accounts or permissions. Administrators is a security role that can be assigned to any NX Portal user.

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions

System	Permissions	Notes
AgilePoint NX Portal tenant	Manage settings on the AgilePoint NX Portal. Add, modify, and delete users, groups, and roles. Manage apps, packages, processes, eForms, shared variables, shared lists and other shared resources. Manage permission groups for App Builder, Data Entities, and Page Builder.	The Administrators role has full access rights for the AgilePoint NX Portal tenant, except the access rights reserved for the Tenant Administrator. Unlike Data Entities and Page Builder, App Builder does not have a Global Permission Manager permission group. By default, global permissions for apps are managed by users with the Administrators role. You can create new roles for managing global permissions in App Builder if you do not want those users to have full administrator access rights. You can have more than one AgilePoint NX account with the Administrators role. The default Administrators role is not the only type of administrator level role that you can create in AgilePoint NX. You can create custom administrator-level roles with different access rights. To assign a user the Administrators role, in Manage Center, edit the Administrators role, and add the user as a member.

How To Add the Administrators Role to a User or Group

By default, in OnPremises or Private Cloud environments, the Tenant Administrator is assigned the Administrators role when you install AgilePoint NX.
By default, in OnDemand environments, the Administrators role is assigned to the first user added to an environment when you sign up for AgilePoint NX environment.
To add the Administrators role to other users or groups, refer to Administrators.