System Architect XT Guest User access

System Architect XT can be configured to allow “Guest User” access to SAXT Reader page for an encyclopedia. Frequently, an organization may want to share Reports or Diagrams within the organization without having to go through the extra configuration of adding their entire organization to the Catalog. This setting will allow users not in the catalog to still view System Architect XT pages by using a Proxy user.

This option will be enabled through System Architect Catalog Manager. To enable “Guest User” access, complete the following steps in Catalog Manager:

1 Add a user:
From the Users & Groups tree root, you can choose to add a New User or Import existing Windows domain or SQL database user.

2 Assign user to Encyclopedia:
Copy and paste or drag the added user to the encyclopedia you want to give “Guest User” access to.

3 Assign a role:
As with other System Architect XT users, you must also assign a Role to this user in the encyclopedia.

Note Even if you give this user Write access to the encyclopedia, “Guest Users” are restricted to Read-only access in System Architect XT.

4 Nominate the user as “Guest User” account:
From the Catalog Manager menu, click Options, and then click SAXT Catalog Options. This dialog has an entry for SAXT Guest User Account. Enter the User you added exactly as it appears in the Users & Groups tree, so for example if it is a Windows domain account, you must include the domain and backslash as it appears.

Note To get the most out of this feature, the System Architect XT Administrator should use a Windows username they would be able to use to login to System Architect XT without “Guest User” access enabled. Using such a Windows username, they can create Saved Queries and Dashboards that the “Guest Users” will find useful, because “Guest Users” will not be able to save those items on their own. For details, see below in Security considerations.

System Architect XT has the requirement of only being used with Enterprise encyclopedias so that it can provide Role-based access per user as defined in System Architect Catalog Manager. This requirement is somewhat circumvented by the use of “Guest User” access, so the following considerations have been made in its implementation.

▪Role-based access will still be maintained as “Guest Users” will be going through a Proxy account that must still be added to the Catalog and assigned a Role for the encyclopedia. The Role can still impose limits if there are specific Diagram or Definition types that should be hidden from the “Guest User”.

▪“Guest Users” access can still be controlled through the IIS server hosting System Architect XT. Every System Architect XT user, regardless of Catalog membership, must first authenticate through the IIS server using their Windows credentials to access the System Architect XT website; therefore, you can configure IIS to only allow certain Windows groups in your organization.

▪The Proxy user will still be considered part of the Everyone group, so do not add the Everyone group to any encyclopedias you do not want to be accessed by “Guest Users”.

▪To prevent changes that cannot be tracked to a specific user, any System Architect XT features that save to the database are disabled for “Guest Users”. Using the default System Architect XT interface, the list of disabled features include:

▪System Architect XT internal bookmarks, links, and queries cannot be saved for later use.

▪User is restricted to Reader license, and cannot switch to Updater, whether through the website buttons, or by using a URL with direct link to Updater profile. This means Diagrams and definitions cannot be edited or created.