Best practices for defining knowledge permissions in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround
Approaches to defining knowledge permissions
The following table describes the different approaches to defining knowledge access permissions in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround:
Approach | Description |
|---|---|
Confidentiality-based | Limit access to knowledge articles that contain sensitive or confidential information only for the user groups authorized to work with it, for example, confidential recruitment policies. |
User role-based or job function-based | Assign access to knowledge articles based on the user's role within the organization. For example, employees of the finance and recruitment departments might need access to completely different sets of knowledge articles to do their jobs. Also, you can grant broader permissions for certain roles. For example, managers may need privileged access permissions compared with nonmanagerial employees. |
Organization lifecycle-based | Grant access to knowledge articles that apply to a specific lifecycle phase within the organization only for users that need it. For example, you can allow new hires to access only onboarding knowledge articles. |
Location-based | Restrict access for users from a specific location to knowledge articles created for a different location, for example, country-based HR policies. |
Service provider multitenancy-based | Segregate knowledge articles for different external clients of the organization if the organization provides its services to the clients by using BMC products. |
After you identify the approaches based on which you want to define knowledge access permissions, the respective user groups can be created in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround and mapped with the existing groups in your BMC application.
Permission limitations in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround
When you plan the knowledge access structure in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround, limit the number of user groups that you create in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround because of the following restrictions:
- Only 64 user groups can be created in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround.
- User groups must be multiplied for each KCS role that requires access to knowledge articles in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround.
Multiplying user groups for KCS roles your organization uses is needed because KCS roles in BMC Helix ITSM or BMC Helix Business Workflows are assigned per user, but these KCS roles are assigned per user group in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround. As a result, users from BMC Helix ITSM or BMC Helix Business Workflows are mapped to specific BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround user groups based on their KCS role. However, you are not required to use all KCS roles for all user groups in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround. For example, you might want to grant access to knowledge articles only for Knowledge Managers in some user groups.