User Access

Simple:Press Forum has an extremely sophisticated, yet easy to work with, user access control system that enables you to create a forum that anyone can visit and post to right through to a completely private forum for invited individuals only. Or – of course – a mix of the two.

This system is controlled through the combination of User Groups and Permissions.

Both User Groups and Permissions are described in detail on the next pages but here we will discuss the concepts involved.

User Groups

You may have as many User Groups as you wish but there must be at least one. When you create a new forum, your User Groups are listed in the forum creation form and you will need to assign to each User Group a set of Permissions.

One important thing to consider is that you do not have to assign the same set of Permissions to the same User Group in all of your forums.

Permission Sets

Like User Groups, you may define as many Permission Sets as you need but there must always be one. Permission Sets control what a user can and can not do within the forum – such as view a forum, post to a forum, upload images or use private messaging.

Through Permission Sets you can control what members of a User Group can do in any forum to which they are assigned.

What Does This Mean?

Let’s construct a very simple example.

Let us assume you want to create three User Groups:

• The first will be for ‘Guests’ or non-registered users who you wish to have access to a couple of forums that are open and public.
• You also need a User Group for ‘Members’ who will have access to more forums and will be able to perform more actions.
• Finally, you have a more private forum open to ‘Special Members’ and they too will require their own User Group.

You will also now need the appropriate Permission Sets:

• Users in the ‘Guest’ group are to be granted ‘Limited Access’ to the forums they can see. For forums they can NOT see, they will be granted ‘No Access’.
• Users in the ‘Members’ group can perform more actions then ‘Guests’ so will be granted ‘Standard Access’ to the forums they can see but, again, ‘No Access’ to the forums they can not.
• And your ‘Special Members’ will be granted ‘Standard Access’ to all forums.

In this way it is possible to create a complex series of relationships for the most demanding situations. It is just as easy to create very simplistic relationships for more open and public forums.