This article provides an overview of one of the most important tools governing user access to your site: Security Groups.

Security Groups are, essentially, high-level categories to which your users belong, and which your account Super Admins use to manage:

• Which navigation items and content your users are allowed to view and access across your site.
• Which individual communities your users are allowed to join.

Check out Understand Join and View permissions to learn how to set and manage these permissions.

Manage permissions

Most content across your site — including your communities, their associated Discussions and Libraries, and even individual pages and content within those pages — can be assigned unique Join and/or View permissions to control access to that content.

Security Groups simplify managing these permissions because you can assign permissions to a Security Group (instead of to individual users) and then add users to the group, thereby automatically assigning those permissions to those users; each user who is added to the Security Group inherits the group's default set of permissions.

Member access overview

Users who have Member access (via the IsMember Security Group) are considered members of your site. As such, they can:

• Be found listed in the Member Directory;
• Send and receive contact requests and inbox messages;
• Create a personal network of contacts by connecting with other users;
• View and join "Members Only"-designated communities; and
• Access "Members Only"-designated content.

Custom Security Groups

The IsMember Security Group is the default Higher Logic Security Group for managing Member access. In addition to this, you can create additional, custom Security Groups with which you can manage Member permissions and access more closely.

This is especially beneficial if your organization wants to restrict, for example, some pages or content to only certain types Members (e.g., staff members) who have to be able to access it, while other Members don't.

Some of the more common and popular custom Security Groups:

• Staff (for organization staff)
• Associate Member
• Student Member

Default Higher Logic Security Groups

There are four default Higher Logic Security Groups which are described below.

NOTE: These default Higher Logic Security Groups are in all Communities, including AMS-managed.

See Manage Security Groups to learn how to assign users to Higher Logic Security Groups and manage them.

AMS-managed vs. Higher Logic Security Groups

If your site is AMS-managed ("integrated"), you might have a mix of Higher Logic Security Groups and AMS-managed Security Groups. AMS-managed Security Groups are managed and assigned to users exclusively in your AMS/CRM, not in Higher Logic.

• AMS-managed Security Groups have an AMS key that corresponds to the primary key for the member type/Security Group in your AMS/CRM database. When that database and your community are synchronized, user records are automatically managed (added / removed) in these Security Groups in your community, based on the business rules in your AMS/CRM.
• Higher Logic Security Groups are created and managed in your Higher Logic community site. Users are added to and removed from these Security Groups either manually in the Admin interface or via Automation Rules.

Permissions via Automation Rules

Automation Rules work as "virtual community assistants" that you can configure to automate tedious and time-consuming actions that have to be performed repeatedly. You can set up Automation Rules to add/remove users to/from Higher Logic-managed Security Groups; so that the assigning and revoking of Member permissions is automated.

TIP: Learn how to create and manage Automation Rules so that you can add and remove users in Security Groups.

Integrations exceptions

If your site is AMS-managed, it's important to note that you cannot manage Member permissions (IsMember) with Automation Rules.

IMPORTANT: In AMS-managed Communities, IsMember status is granted and removed only via the account's AMS-managed Security Groups.

CMS security settings

The CMS is Higher Logic's central navigation- and content-management editor. With it, you can:

• Manage site navigation
• Create new pages and update existing ones
• Add and remove content to and from pages, and determine content placement
• Hide and remove pages and content
• And perhaps most importantly, control who can access pages and content on those pages by setting a View permission (e.g., Members only).

See Understand the CMS to learn more about the Higher Logic CMS.

See Manage Page and Content Access to learn how to set view permissions for your pages and content.

Security Group Summary report

It's important to understand your Security Groups and their access rights to your site. One way to view your Security Groups is using the Security Group Summary report. This report:

• indicates whether certain member types are prohibited from coming over from your integrated database to Higher Logic,
• provides a list of Security Groups that are considered IsMember, and
• shows the number of users in to each Security Group.

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Users > Reports.

3. Scroll down to the Security Groups Summary section and click View Report.

Related articles

Visit the Manage Security Groups section of our knowledge base to learn how to:

• Manage Security Groups
• Manage Users in Security Groups