Overview
The Group Administrator Permissions is a suite of five controls that grant or limit a group-level administrator's authority over users and group settings (within the Acrobat Sign environment). Because these controls directly enable group admin authority, they exist only at the account level and apply to all groups.
- Group administrators can edit group settings - When enabled, the account-level administrator can designate which tabs in the settings menu the group-level admins have the authority to configure. Remember that group-level settings override the account settings, and the group-level settings define or grant access to users and agreements.
- Group administrators can edit user profile information - When enabled, group-level administrators can edit any user's user profile.
- Group administrators can edit user permissions - When enabled, the group administrator can elevate a non-privileged user to have group administrator authority.
- Group administrators can add or remove users from a group by - This dropdown contains three options that control if the group-level admin can create new users in the account and assign them between groups.
- Group admins can remove users from the account's default group - If enabled, the group-level administrator has the authority to remove users from the account's Default group, even if the admin does not have administrative authority in the Default group.
Best practices
The authority granted to group-level administrators will be highly dependent on the size of the account and the organizational demand for distributing user and group management. It's generally a good rule to disable any functionality you don't expect group admins to do regularly and adjust when needed.
Access to group settings can be handy when initially creating and configuring groups for specific work purposes. However, settings aren't prone to frequent changes, so removing this access after the initial setup should be considered. If some settings demand periodic adjustment, only enable the tabs containing those settings. Tabs referencing more global configurations (e.g., Digital Identity, Security Settings) should probably be locked down for Account level administration in most organizations. Not that is it possible to enable access to configure group-level settings and then lock access to the tab, preserving the edits.
The authority to edit a user's profile information is rarely needed but has relatively little risk. The decision for user profiles typically falls to a preference of having one admin do a task or sending a group email to the users and having them update their profiles.
The authority to elevate a user to group administrator access caries a non-trivial risk, as group-level administrators may have access to a broader range of potentially more sensitive information, such as the data fields from agreements sent by all users in their group which may contain personal identifiable information, credit card information, and so on. For most organizations, constraining the ability to elevate user authority is best left to account-level administrators.
Managing user access to groups aligns with what a group admin would be expected to do in most organizations. Little risk is presented, as the group admin can only add users to their group, and they cannot change the user's primary group (unless the user's primary group is also under the authority of the group admin).
Adding new users to the account is generally reserved for account-level administrators or automated processes (such as automatic provisioning through SSO authentication). There may be circumstances that require a group-level admin to undertake this task, but this level of authority should typically be removed when the job is completed.
Granting the authority to remove users from the Default group will depend on how the Default group is being used. Accounts that use the group as a holding area for new and inactivated users may find enabling this option removes significant friction from their group administrators when new users are onboarded. Accounts that use the Default group as a working group from which users are expected to send agreements will likely want to deny having users removed by group admins.
Configuration
Availability:
Group Administrator Permissions are available for enterprise license plans only.
Configuration scope:
The feature can be enabled at the account level only.
The controls for this feature can be assessed by navigating to Global Settings > Group Administrator Permissions
When the Group administrators can edit group settings option is enabled, the account administrator can access individual settings pages to become editable by group-level administrators.
The group-level administrators can view all of the settings tabs. The ones that cannot be edited are marked with a lock icon before the tab's name.
Selecting a locked tab presents a message at the top of the page indicating the account administrator has restricted editing of the page.
If Group administrators can edit group settings is disabled, denying access entirely, the group-level administrator won't have the option to expand the group settings to view the individual tabs.
It's permissible to edit a group's settings and then lock the group from further editing. The configured settings persist as long as the Override account settings for this page option remains enabled.
If the Override account settings for this page option is ever disabled (and the page is saved), the group will revert to inheriting the account-level settings.
When enabled, the group-level administrator can access the Edit Profile button when viewing the Users Settings. Editing the profile gives direct edit access to the user:
- Name
- Initials
- Phone number
- Company name
- Job Title
- Time Zone
- Measurement Unit
Disabling this setting removes the Edit Profile button from the User Settings interface.
When enabled, the group administrator can elevate any user under their authority to be a group-level admin. This ability to elevate a user is limited to only the groups that the elevating admin has authority over.
When disabled, the Group Admin checkboxes are visible, but interaction with them is suppressed.
This setting limits if a group-level administrator can add new users and if they can assign users to their group. There are three options:
One of three options must be selected:
- Group administrators cannot add new users or assign users to groups - If this option is selected, only account-level administrators will have the authority to add new users and to add them to groups.
The options to add, edit, and assign users are removed from the Users in Group interface and User Settings interface.
- Assign any existing user in the account to a group - If this option is selected, the group administrator can assign any user to the groups in which they have admin authority.
- The User Settings page displays an Add group membership icon.
- The Group:<Group name> page displays an Assign users icon.
- Selecting the Assign users icon opens a list of all users not currently in the group.
- Adding new users to the account or assigning existing account users to a group - If selected, the group-level administrators have the authority to add new users to the account and to assign them to the groups in which they have admin authority.
- The User Settings page displays an Add group membership icon.
- The Add User icon is added to the Group:<Group name> page.
- Selecting the Add User icon opens the Create interface, which allows creating individual new users or creating users in bulk.
- Selecting the Add User icon opens the Create interface, which allows creating individual new users or creating users in bulk.
The Create menu offers the option to update users (in bulk if needed) using a CSV file.
Enabling this feature allows a group-level administrator to remove a user from the account's Default group, regardless of whether the admin has authority in the Default group.
When disabled, the group admin cannot view the user's Default group membership.
