Administrator Types

AgilePoint NX uses several types of administrators. This section explains both the user types and permissions for these various people, accounts, and roles.

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.
Figure: AgilePoint Server Configuration > System tab

AgilePoint Server Configuration System tab

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions and Configuration

SystemPermissionsNotes

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

AgilePoint NX Portal tenants

How To Create or Change This Account

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.

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.
Note: In the AgilePoint UI, the Service Account is referred to as Impersonation.
Figure: AgilePoint Server Manager screen

AgilePoint Server Manager screen

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions and Configuration

SystemPermissionsNotes

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

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)

Tenant Information tab

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions

SystemPermissionsNotes

AgilePoint NX Portal tenant

  • 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

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.
Figure: Administrators (role)

Administrators Role

Applies to Deployment Types

Permissions

SystemPermissionsNotes

AgilePoint NX Portal tenant

  • 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.