Linking NT Groups

Crystal Enterprise allows administrators to authorize users via Windows NT, this is advantrages since most organizations already have a security plan already implemented in Windows. This feature will allow administrators to take advantage of existing Windows NT groups and the username passwords stored in NT will also be used in Crystal Enterprise thereby eliminating the need for users to remember another username/password pair. This tutorial covers how to import groups from Windows for a fictious online movie video store.

This fictious company, Keptin Movies, has four sales regions; Sales Region 1, Sales Region 2, Sales Region 3 and Sales Region 4, these names reflect the NT Group names. There are two other NT Groups; IT Dept, Sales Managers and a third group CEAdmin has been created for Crystal Enterprise Administrators. It is assumed that each of these groups has different privileges granted within the Windows network and that membership in these groups will also apply to reports.

The first step is to log into the Crystal Management Console as shown below:

 

From this screen you should click on Manage Authorization - from this facility you will be able to add additional licence keys (see below), define settings for Crystal Enterprise Accounts, link to an LDAP server and link Windows NT Accounts.

Click on the Windows NT tab to access the necessary screen for adding Windows NT Accounts as seen below.

Note that there is a pre-existing group "secWindowsNT:\\LITTLEKEPTIN\CRYSTAL NT USERS", this group is added during the install process and if it isn't going to be used it should be deleted both from here and from Windows NT. This group will be useful to organizations which do not have a well defined groups within their system. In this case keep the CRYSTAL NT USERS group and simply add all users to it and then define groups with-in Crystal Enterprise.

By default the NT Authentication is enabled is checked - keep this checked unless you do not wish Crystal Entperise to link to Windows NT - this tutorial is assuming that you do.

The Default NT Domain is the domain which the system will attempt to find a group in if you do not define a domain in the "Add NT Group (NT Domain\Group)" text area. For instance to add the Sales Region 1 group we would type Sales Region 1 or \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region 1 (see below).

Since in this case LITTLEKEPTIN is the default domain typing it in is optional although doing so will not result in any problems. In the event it is desired to link to a group in another domain, assume the accounting department has its own domain: ACCOUNTING and has a group called ReportUsers, then an adiminstrator would type \\ACCOUNTING\ReportUsers.

To add a group simply type in the information as shown above and click the Add button, you may add several groups by typing each in and clicking the add button and then clicking the Update button. However, it is advisable to only do a few groups at a time since a typo will cause the mistyped group and all successive groups to not be added. For instance if you type \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region 1, \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region 2, \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region3, \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region 4, Sales Managers, IT Dept and CEAdmin. Note that \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region3 is a typo it should be \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region 3 and as such all groups typed in after this group, \\LITTLEKEPTIN\Sales Region 4, \\LITTLEKEPTIN\IT Dept and CEAdmin, will not be added. Therefore, in order to save retyping, its a good idea to verify all group names as they are typed in and click the Update button frequently. If a group name is typed incorrectly the following error message will be displayed:

Note that clicking the OK button will return you to the Crystal Management Console main screen.

Once all groups have been added to Crystal Enterprise the groups will appear in the list box as shown below:

Note that all groups will be preceeded by secWindowsNT: and then referred to by \\Domain_Name\Group_Name. Once groups are added all users in the NT group will be added as users to the Crystal Enterprise system.

To delete a group simply click on it and hit the Delete button. However, a group is not deleted from the system unless the Update button is clicked. Note that when a group is removed from the system all users assigned to that group will also be removed and the operation can not be undone.