Although Ardoq Discover aims to make your Ardoq data more accessible, Ardoq administrators still need the ability to set permissions to govern which people or groups can access which data.

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Given that you are an admin user in core Ardoq and your organization has the Ardoq Discover add-on, you can grant users access to Ardoq Discover by enabling the Discover privilege on their user role or individually per user.

The Discover privilege only allows users to access Ardoq Discover. It won’t give users access to content (i.e viewpoints) automatically. After they have access to Ardoq Discover, grant them the "Access" permission on each viewpoint you want them to explore in Ardoq Discover. Learn how to in the “Ardoq Discover Permissions” below.

Enable the Discover privilege on a user role when you wish to grant users with a specific user role access to Ardoq Discover. It is the easiest way to manage who can access Ardoq Discover in your organization. Once the Discover privilege is enabled on a user role, it is not possible to disable it on specific users who have that user role.

For example, if you enable the Discover privilege on the Contributor user role, all of your existing Contributor users, and those you add in the future, will be able to access Ardoq Discover. Because the Discover privilege is enabled on the Contributor user role, you won’t be able to disable the Discover privilege on single users who have the Contributor user role assigned.

To grant Discover access to a specific user role:

Enable the Discover privilege individually per user when you wish to give specific users access to Discover in case their user role does not grant it.

To enable the Discover privilege on single users:

The “Access Discover” privilege shows grayed out when it is enabled on the user’s user role. This means the user already has access to Discover via their user role.

Use permissions to grant a group of users or single users access to content and define the actions they can perform on that content.

The type of content users can access in Ardoq Discover are viewpoints. Regardless of your user role, it is only possible to read content in Ardoq Discover with the exception of updating component information via a survey in a viewpoint.

As an admin user in core Ardoq, you can assign users the:

Given that you are an admin user, follow the steps below to grant users a permission on a viewpoint:

By default, admin users have access to all viewpoints. You don’t need to grant them the “Access” permission for them to see a viewpoint in core Ardoq nor in Ardoq Discover.

Admin users can:

This means admin users keep centralized control of data access rights. This ensures that viewpoints are defined by the users with the best understanding of the Ardoq organization’s repository structure.

Ardoq Discover users have access to the Ardoq Discover platform where they are a consumer of the viewpoint information provided by the admin. In addition, they are a respondent of the different surveys for each component an admin user chooses to expose in Ardoq Discover.

With the “Access” permission, a user or group will:

Without the “Access” permission, the viewpoint will not appear in the Viewpoint Selector menu at all. The thinking behind this is that someone with access to a viewpoint should have read access to all the underlying workspaces otherwise they should be given access to an alternative viewpoint that excludes sensitive data.

It’s important to understand that the component and reference types a user can see depends on all the viewpoints they have access to. For instance, typically, an Ardoq Discover user has the “Contributor” role in the Ardoq core app. If the user is only a Contributor in Ardoq, they will need to have the "Access" permission to access a viewpoint in Discover. If they do not have access to any viewpoints, the result page will be empty.

Let’s take a look at how permissions for Ardoq Discover content work in practice.

An admin user has access to all data in Ardoq Discover. This means firstly that the admin user sees all workspaces in all viewpoints in the search bar’s Browse menu.

If the admin users clicks on a particular component - let’s say the SAP ERP application - then they’ll see all its associated components to one degree of relationship.

Now, let’s say they have defined a new viewpoint(A) consisting of 4 component types: Business Capabilities, Applications, Servers, and Locations. Each of these types sits in separate workspaces with the same names.

Now they grant the user Diana the “Access” permission on that viewpoint(A). It’s the only viewpoint this user has access to.

Now the user Diana can access Ardoq Discover. She can search for business capabilities, applications, servers, and locations included in viewpoint(A) by typing the name of a component, for example “SAP ERP”, in the search bar or navigating the search bar’s Browse menu. The parent folders of those workspaces also show in the Browse menu. Only the workspaces within the folders Diana has access to show, not the contents of the whole folder.

So when Diana searches for “SAP ERP” she can see and open the SAP ERP component in the default viewpoint view, where she can see only the component types included in viewpoint(A).

She cannot see components from other workspaces that are more than one step

away from the context component. For example, she will not see locations from the Locations workspace to view where those applications or servers are located.

Here are 4 things users can do in Ardoq Discover today:

1. Use the search bar

Search Bar on The Ardoq Discover Home Page

Today Ardoq Discover users can access the Ardoq Discover home page and type the component name they’re searching for in a search bar. This is the fastest way for a user to find everything related to them in the organization.

Quick Search Bar on The Viewpoint Page

If an Ardoq Discover user wants to compare a few components of the same viewpoint, they can do it on the viewpoint page using the quick search bar.

The quick search feature brings the essential functionality of the search bar from the Discover home page to the viewpoint page allowing users to view data in parallel and in the same viewpoint.

2. Access the Browse menu

By default, every user has access to the Browse menuin the search bar. However, they see only the workspaces associated with a viewpoint shared by the admin.

This menu offers an alternative to a search bar. It helps users find information related to a specific part of the organization.

3. Access viewpoints

An Ardoq Discover user can only access viewpoints shared with them by the admin. A user accesses viewpoints via the email notification link or from the Ardoq Discover home page. Through the viewpoints, users can run instant impact analysis, identify experts, and explore how they’re connected to the wider organization.

Learn how to grant users access to a viewpoint in the section above.

4. Contribute their knowledge

In order to automate workflows and support constant improvements, users contribute their knowledge to the Ardoq Discover knowledge graph by answering the surveys linked to the component types in Discover whenever information related to a role should be updated.

Find out how to use surveys in Ardoq Discover in this KB article.

5. Get in touch with the admin

To facilitate communication and support between an Ardoq Discover user and admin, we added the "Contact admin" feature that can help users contact the admin in case they face any challenges while working with a viewpoint. They can also request changes to the viewpoint or data in the view.

The user can easily find the viewpoint admin’s contact information directly on the viewpoint’s page as well as a message template including a link to the viewpoint. They can use this template to quickly send an email to the relevant admin.