Model Access Rights: Solution design

When designing an application in ObjectGears it is useful to start with a scheme of relations between classes (entity relationship diagram). Requirements on Access Rights model lead e.g. to this class scheme.

Relations between classes will be ensured by columns of type Value from a referenced class. Internal ObjectGears class Person, that contains ObjectGears users and can be referenced like any class defined by the user, is highlighted in red.

We can meet the requirements relating to the approval process by means of workflow.

Requests for assignment of particular access rights will be stored in the class Request. The requirement that particular records can be displayed only by user that entered the request, by the user for whom the access rights are demanded or by managers of these persons will be met by setting up access rights with use of an organization structure. We will use organization structure of the type Person manager, that is defined in the class extending user properties that contains column Manager.

Design of the class Request is described in the chapter User screens.

When designing an application it is necessary to consider wheather its classes shall be placed in an existing model (extension of an existing application), into a new model, into a separate ObjectGears instance or into a special server. The sample application Access Rights is placed in a separate model. In case ObjectGears is used for an access rights solution, nature of this application would probably call for a separate ObjectGears instance or even a separate server due to security aspects of such an system determined for management of access rights. More information about this topic can be found in chapter Security aspects of creating a new functionality.