Empower Tip: Data Security

In this tip, I thought it would be timely to answer a question I recently received that pertains to Data Security: Restricting access to Empower and Empower projects. (Next week, we’ll continue our series on Custom Fields in Empower.)

What you need to know before we get started: In order to gain access to Empower, a user must first have an active account with a valid user name and password. Every user is assigned a set of privileges, establishing what they can and cannot do in Empower. The level of access to a project is set when it is created and can be modified as needed. Because there are audit trails built into Empower, all activity inside and outside of the projects is recorded.

Let’s get started.

When you create a new project, the wizard allows you to set access.

Select ‘Owner only’, ‘Owner and Group’ or ‘Owner, Group, and World’, or you can also set the ‘Group User Type’ or ‘World User Type’. The default is ‘User’s Own Type’ which means whatever privileges those users have in Empower will apply to this project. You can modify the user type from the drop down menu. For example: the ‘Group User Type’ is left at ‘default’, the ‘World User Type’ is set to ‘Guest’. That means anyone outside of the Quality Control Laboratory group will have access to the project as a ‘Guest’. ‘Guests’ will have ‘read only’ access and will not be able to create anything, i.e., methods or results. (Administrators will have access to all projects.)

Access to existing projects can be modified by ‘right clicking’ on the project, selecting ‘Properties’ and going to the Access tab.

The System Audit trail keeps track of who has created projects.

The Project Audit trail keeps track of activity inside of the project.

Electronic signatures can be applied to reports, eliminating any question as to who approved or rejected the results.

If an unauthorized person attempts to access the Empower system, an email alert is sent to the appropriate person(s) with notification.

It’s that easy!

If you would like to learn more, view/download our White Paper: System Policies and Privileges for Processing Data in Empower Software