For construction companies with thousands of documents, specifications and other records, maintaining effective IT security is crucial for ensuring the safety of those companies and their data. With software capabilities accelerating at break-neck speed the last ten years, it can be difficult to keep up with new software developments or updates to current solutions. Trimble’s ProjectSight allows for a user-friendly interface and intuitive tools to present customers with effective solutions to any of their software needs. In their Security Group settings module, users can safely and easily design and execute their own IT security goals. Today, we will learn the functions of these settings and how to best utilize them for any project management goals.

Standard Security Roles

First, enter your portfolio settings page and select ‘Security roles’. ProjectSight automatically populates five different security roles with varied levels of permissions:

Portfolio Administrator – This role provides users with the ability to create, edit and delete any type of record, as well as total control over project and portfolio settings.

Project Administrator – The step below a portfolio administrator, this role grants users all of the same permissions as the aforementioned role but only on the project level. They will be unable to see or edit settings for the portfolio in which their project resides.

Manager – This role allows users the ability to add or edit select records but prevents them deleting records. The responsibilities granted in this role vary the most of the five standard security groups and can be tailored to any project’s requirements.

Contributor – A sufficient role for users like subcontractors or architects who may need access to particular modules in ProjectSight - like drawings, specs or submittals – but do not necessarily need access to project information outside of their scope of work.

Viewer – Meant for clients or outside parties who may need to be privy to information relating to the project but without permissions to make any changes, the ‘Viewer’ role allows users to only see relevant project information.

The greatest strength of ProjectSight is the customizability of its standard features. While the user interface provides users with “plug-and-go” roles that require little initial editing, it also grants portfolio administrators the power to edit those same roles or create entirely new ones. To make those edits as a portfolio administrator, select any of these roles to make edits. For our purposes, we will select ‘Manager’.

In our ‘Security Role’ drilldown, we can edit four main modules. The two that we will cover today are ‘Features’ and ‘Records’.

Features

The ‘Features’ module allows the person setting permissions to select the various functionalities and features the security group can access. By checking the box next to the feature, administrators can grant a group access to that feature.

Records

In addition to setting up high-level access for a group, permission setters can also edit the depth of access as well. The ‘Records’ module contains four permission sets for each row of data: ‘View’, ‘Create’, ‘Modify’, and ‘Remove’. Each of these self-evident settings levels dictates the level of access this group will have to each record. Typically, groups like portfolio or project administrators should have unlimited access to their portfolio or project settings, while other groups like standard users, sub-contractors, or architects should have more restrictions placed on them, especially if they are a third-party company.

Fields

Finally, the ‘Fields’ tab allows one to set the level of access this security group has to their fields in a record type. In the dropdown menus, there are three possible settings: green check mark for full access, blue eyeball for viewing access only, and a red dot with a white line for restricted access. You can cycle through each of these three settings by simply clicking on those icons.

Once we are satisfied with our security settings, we can add a title and description to this security group by entering that data into the text boxes on the righthand side of the screen.

User Invite

When you are satisfied with your security group, you can send invites to your users. You can add a new user by selecting the ‘plus’ icon in the top right corner, or you can assign this group to an already existing user. To edit the group of a current user, select that user’s data row. Text boxes with the user’s information will appear on the righthand side of the screen, and you can edit their ‘Default Security Role’.

Maintaining proper security on a project or portfolio is a necessity. Should a company make mistakes in their security permission setup, they risk exposing themselves and their internal data to users who cannot be trusted with sensitive information. That is why Trimble outlines so many varied strategies for assigning security permissions in ProjectSight. They give their customers total control and agency over their portfolio security, ensuring that their data is easily protected. If you have any questions regarding ProjectSight's features or are interested in adding this software to your company's project management repertoire, please visit our website - ConstrucTech Consulting - and Book a Call with one of our consultants.

‍