You are viewing an earlier version of the admin guide. For the latest version, please visit EmpowerID Admin Guide v7.211.0.0.

Overview of Partner Delegations

If your organization has partners that need to access your system to manage the IT resources you have allocated to them (such as onboarding employees, adding people to groups, creating new user accounts, etc.), you can create special EmpowerID locations, known as "Organization" locations, for those partners and assign to the people within those locations one or more of the "Partner" Management Roles EmpowerID provides out of the box. Combining these locations and Management Roles with a Business Role and Location assignment, allows you to give partners the ability to fully manage their domain without exposing to them your IT infrastructure. In this way, you can have multiple partners conducting business within your enterprise without those partners having an awareness of one another or of the resources internal to your organization. We discuss in further detail below how each of these aspects of the partner relationship work together.

Partner Management Roles


As mentioned above, EmpowerID provides "Partner" Management Roles out of the box. These roles are the Partner Admin Management Role and the Partner User Management Role. Each is configured with Access Levels for a subset of resources commensurate with the role. The Partner Admin Management Role give assignees administrative capabilities over aspects of their domain, with the Partner User Management Role gives assignees the ability to perform basic actions, such as searching for people, requesting access to resources and initiating several workflows.


Partner Admins have both Management Roles. Additionally, all partners receive the Self-Service User Management Role.

Partner Admin Management Role

This Management Role gives assignees of the role the ability to manage the people and resources in their partner locations.

Assignment Type: Person Relative Resource

Resource TypeAccess LevelAssignment DescriptionFor Resources Below
PersonAll Access (EmpowerID Admin)Assignment to any Person as All Access (EmpowerID Admin) that matches this criteria: People in organizations I belong to.EmpowerIDAdmininstrator
PeopleInMyOrganization
User AccountAll Access (EmpowerID Admin)Assignment to any User Account as All Access (EmpowerID Admin) that matches this criteria: Accounts in organizations I belong to.EmpowerIDAdmininstrator
AccountsInMyOrganization
Group (Security)All Access (EmpowerID Admin)Assignment to any Group(Security) as All Access (EmpowerID Admin) that matches this criteria: Security Groups in organizations I belong to.EmpowerIDAdmininstrator
SecurityGroupsInMyOrganization
Group (Distribution)All Access (EmpowerID Admin)Assignment to any Group(Distribution) as All Access (EmpowerID Admin) that matches this criteria: Distribution Groups in organizations I belong to.EmpowerIDAdmininstrator
DistributionGroupsInMyOrganization
Group (Generic)All Access (EmpowerID Admin)Assignment to any Group(Generic) as All Access (EmpowerID Admin) that matches this criteria: Generic Groups in organizations I belong to.EmpowerIDAdmininstrator
GenericGroupsInMyOrganization

Assignment Type: Direct

Resource TypeAccess LevelResourceAssignment Description
Pages and ReportsViewerEdit Group PageDirect assignment to the Edit Group page as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerView Person PageDirect assignment to the View Person Page as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerView Account PageDirect assignment to the View Account page as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerView Group PageDirect assignment to the View Group page as Viewer
WorkflowInitiatorTemporaryGroupMembershipDirect assignment to the TemporaryGroupMembership workflow as Initiator
Pages and ReportsViewerCreate Person SimpleDirect assignment to the Create Person Simple page as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerPerson OnboardingDirect assignment to the Person Onboarding page as Viewer
WorkflowInitiatorUpdatePersonAssetsDirect assignment to the UpdatePersonAssets workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorUpdateAssignmentsDirect assignment to the UpdateAssignments workflow as Initiator
Control (User Interface)ViewerGlobal Person Search BoxDirect assignment to Global Person Search Box as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerReset Password PageDirect assignment to the Reset Password page as Viewer
Control (User Interface)ViewerShopping CartDirect assignment to the Shopping Cart as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerEdit Person PageDirect assignment to the Edit Person page as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerEdit Account PageDirect assignment to the Edit Account page as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerFind Group PageDirect assignment to the Find Group page as Viewer
WorkflowInitiatorUpdateResourceLocationsDirect assignment to the UpdateResourceLocations workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorUpdatePersonBusinessRolesDirect assignment to the UpdatePersonBusinessRoles workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorUpdatePersonRelationshipsDirect assignment to the UpdatePersonRelationships workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorUpdateGroupAccountMembershipDirect assignment to the UpdateGroupAccountMembership workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorPersonPhotoApprovalDirect assignment to the PersonPhotoApproval workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorUpdateResourceTagsDirect assignment to the UpdateResourceTags workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorCreatePersonDirect assignment to the CreatePerson workflow as Initiator
Control (User Interface)ViewerGroup Resource Type Drop-down ItemDirect assignment to the Group Resource Type drop-down item as Viewer
WorkflowInitiatorDeleteMultiplePeopleWFDirect assignment to the DeleteMultiplePeopleWF workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorDisableMultiplePeopleWfDirect assignment to the DisableMultiplePeopleWf workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorEditPersonPhotoApprovalDirect assignment to the EditPersonPhotoApproval workflow as Initiator
Pages and ReportsViewerSSO Applications PageDirect assignment to the SSO Applications page as Viewer
Pages and ReportsViewerFind Group PageDirect assignment to the Find Group page as Viewer
WorkflowInitiatorUpdatePersonGroupMembershipDirect assignment to the UpdatePersonGroupMembership workflow as Initiator
Pages and ReportsViewerFind User Account PageDirect assignment to the Find User Account page as Viewer
WorkflowInitiatorChangePrimaryOrgRoleOrgZoneDirect assignment to the ChangePrimaryORgRoleOrgZone workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorHelpdeskPasswordResetDirect assignment to the HelpdeskPasswordReset workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorHelpdeskAccountUnlockDirect assignment to the HelpdeskAccountUnlock workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorResourceManagerEditGroupDirect assignment to the ResourceManagerEditGroup workflow as Initiator
WorkflowInitiatorPersonEditNonResourceManagerDirect assignment to the PersonEditNonResourceManager workflow as Initiator
Control (User Interface)ViewerAccount Resource Type Drop-down ItemDirect assignment to the Account Resource Type drop-down item as Viewer
Control (User Interface)ViewerPerson Resource Type Drop-down ItemDirect assignment to the Person Resource Type drop-down item as Viewer

Partner User Management Role

This Management Role gives assignees of the role access to the resources in their partner locations.

Assignment Type: Direct

Resource Type

Access Level

Resource

Assignment Description

Workflow

Initiator

UnclaimBusinessProcessTask

Direct assignment to the UnclaimBusinessProcessTask as Initiator

Workflow

Initiator

AddBusinessProcessTaskComment

Direct assignment to the AddBusinessProcessTaskComment as Initiator

Pages and Reports

Viewer

View Self Page

Direct assignment to the View Self Page as Viewer

Pages and Reports

Viewer

Request Center Tasks To Do

Direct assignment to Request Center Tasks To Do as Viewer

Pages and Reports

Viewer

Request Center Tasks Done

Direct assignment to Request Center Tasks Done as Viewer

Pages and Reports

Viewer

Request Center Requests My Open

Direct assignment to Request Center Requests My Open as Viewer

Pages and Reports

Viewer

Request Center Requests My Complete

Direct assignment to Request Center Requests My Complete as Viewer

Workflow

Initiator

TerminateWorkflow

Direct assignment to the TerminateWorkflow workflow as Initiator

Pages and Reports

Viewer

SSO Applications Page

Direct assignment to the SSO Applications page as Viewer

Workflow

Initiator

PersonPhotoApproval

Direct assignment to the PersonPhotoApproval workflow as Initiator

Pages and Reports

Viewer

Edit Self Page

Direct assignment to the Edit Self page as Viewer

Workflow

Initiator

RequestDecisions

Direct assignment to the RequestDecisions workflow as Initiator

Workflow

Initiator

SetBusinessProcessTaskDelegate

Direct assignment to the SetBusinessProcessTaskDelegate workflow as Initiator

Workflow

Initiator

RemoveBusinessProcessTaskDelegate

Direct assignment to the RemoveBusinessProcessTaskDelegate workflow as Initiator

Workflow

Initiator

ClaimBusinessProcessTask

Direct assignment to the ClaimBusinessProcessTask workflow as Initiator

Workflow

Initiator

PersonEditNonResourceManager

Direct assignment to the PersonEditResourceManager workflow as Initiator

Control (User Interface)

Viewer

Person Resource Type Drop-down Item

Direct assignment to the Person Resource Type Drop-down Item as Viewer

Organization Locations


Organization locations are special location types that differ from other EmpowerID locations in that the relative "In My Organizations" Access Levels, such as the "People In My Organizations" Access Level granted to the Partner Admin Management Role, have no effect if assigned to people in other location types.


Technically speaking, the RBAC compiler has a special calculation for each person's Organizations, which is all the OrgZones in or below an OrgZone marked as type Organization.

When people are assigned to an Organization location via a Business Role and Location assignment, the RBAC compiler determines their relative access and limits them as actors to those resources in their Organization location and any Organization locations below theirs in the Organization tree. They cannot act on resources above their location (see the below image and discussion). This limitation, however, does not apply to people as resources. As resources, people belong to all Organization locations in the tree, including the parent. This allows people in top-level Organization locations to act on those below them.

Visually this can be represented as follows:

In the image, the triangle represents the partner organization in it's entirety. Within the organization, there is a top-level parent Organization location and a person belonging to that location with the "User Admin" Business Role (depicted by the figure outlined in green). As this person belongs to the root location, the RBAC compilation of "People in her Organizations" includes the people in the root as well as all the people in the locations below the root. Thus, she can manage all users in the partner organization (represented by the green arrows).

In addition to the User Admin at the root or top-level Organization location, there is a person with the User Admin Business Role (depicted by the figure outlined in blue) at a sub Organization location. As this person belongs to a location below the parent, the RBAC compilation of "People in his Organizations" includes only those people in his sub Organization location and below. Thus, he can manage all users in those locations, but not any of those in the locations above his (represented by the blue arrow). And because he is also a resource, he can be managed by the User Admin at the parent location. This structure allows partner organizations to have sub-Organization locations with their own self-contained management capabilities that can be altered as needed by those in the top-level Organization.

EmpowerID includes a default Organization location under which all partner Organizations should be created. This Organization location is the Partner Organization location. We demonstrate this in the Managing Partner Delegations topic.

Partner Business Roles


As mentioned in the above discussion, managing the access of your partners involves another component, the Business Role. In the EmpowerID RBAC model, Business Roles and locations intersect to provide scope in access assignments. All people must have a Business Role and all resources must belong to a location. In partner delegations, the EmpowerID RBAC compiler uses partner Business Role and Location assignments to determine the relative access to resources the people in those Business Roles and Locations have.

By default, EmpowerID includes two partner Business Role and Location combinations: Partner Admin in Partners and Partner in Partners. These Business Roles and Locations are assigned to the Partner Admin and Partner User Management Roles, respectively. This means that any person assigned to those Business Role and Locations receive the Access Levels granted to those Management Roles. We demonstrate how this works in the Managing Partner Delegations topic.

In this article