5.3 Restricting Groups of Users from Seeing One Another

If your OpenText Vibe site has multiple sets of users who need to remain hidden from each other, you can use access controls to restrict users who belong to a specific group from seeing users who do not belong to the group. For example, you might want to do this if your Vibe site contains users from more than one company and you want users to see only the users who belong to the same company.

You accomplish this by setting zone-level access controls on individual users or groups of users, limiting them to seeing only those users with whom they share a common group.

When you restrict groups of users from seeing one another in your Vibe site, you see the following behaviors:

  • When users search for people in the Vibe site, they do not see the users they are restricted from seeing.

  • By default, users cannot see the personal workspaces of users they are restricted from seeing. However, individual users can modify the access control settings of their personal workspaces to grant access to users who are restricted from seeing them. Users can do this by granting access to other groups.

  • The Vibe site might contain folders and entries that are open to a wider audience, such as in a global workspace. If a restricted user has access to one of these folders, and an entry is posted by someone the user is not allowed to see, the name of the entry creator is hidden. The name is also hidden from the restricted user wherever else it might appear, such as in the Left Navigation pane or on the Search Results page.

    For example, User B is restricted from seeing User A. when User A posts an entry in a global workspace, User B can see the entry but cannot see User B’s name on the entry.

To restrict groups of users from seeing one another:

  1. Create a group for each set of users that you want to keep separate. For example, create groups called Company A, Company B, and Company C.

    For information about how to create a group, see Creating Groups of Users.

  2. Populate each group with the appropriate users.

    For information about how to populate groups with users, see Creating Groups of Users.

  3. Navigate to the Administration page and add the groups to the Can Only See Members of Groups I Am In role or use the Limit User Visibility option as explained in Limiting User Visibility.

    If you want to allow certain members of a group to retain their ability to see users that belong to groups outside of their own, you can add these specific users to the Override “Can Only See Members of Groups I Am In” role.

    For more information about these roles as well as other roles, see Controlling User Access to Administrative Functions.

    For information about how to add users and groups to a specific role, see Controlling User Access to Administrative Functions.

IMPORTANT:Do not create a group that contains users who you want to hide from each other. For example, if your Vibe site has users from Company A and Company B, you should not create a single group that contains users from both Company A and Company B. Users who belong to a common group are able to see each other, regardless of any access controls that are set on other groups. If you must create a single group of users from multiple companies, first create a sub-group for each company so you can keep users’ names separate from each other.