When upgrading to version 10 or 2010 from version 9, GP Utilities asks if it should upgrade security. No. NO! Resist the temptation to take the fast track! You will only bring over the junk you are running away from. Start fresh, clean, and clutter-free.
Starting fresh with security also gives the added value of revisiting security requirements. More than a few of our customers did not want to mess with the over-complicated security model of old and just left everyone with access to everything. Not the Sarbanes-Oxley approach, but they had accounting to attend to. When they did take the time to implement security their users would start out with the default permissions assigned by their User Class, and that would be the last time their security ever matched the defaults. A report "I need to run for So-And-So" here, a window "I have to enter in transactions while So-And-So is on vacation" there - all undocumented, of course, and no one would have the guts to reset them back to the default User Class because that would be a phone call from an unhappy user who "can't do anything" just waiting to happen.
Version 10/2010's Security Roles have given nearly all of our customers a reason to implement real security. It's a whole lot easier to figure that their AP Clerk gets the AP Clerk role and that additional permissions are given through the additional role created just for those additions. As far as whether or not to edit the default roles, my suggestion is to leave the default roles alone and either create new ones based on the defaults or create new ones with just the additional permissions. Someone's on vacation? You can give their role to the their underpaid grunt and take it back upon return. One checkbox.
One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot deny access - only allow access. Maybe you have several people performing the same tasks except for one of them who shouldn't see a handful of those windows or reports. You would create one role with all the common tasks and another with the exceptions.
My unique contribution to this subject is this security worksheet to help get started with version 10's security before the upgrade. This is a .zip file with two Excel spreadsheets. One is mainly designed to show the default Tasks contained within each default Role, and the other is a worksheet to assign Users to Roles. Both are derived from a set of SQL Reports we created in-house to give a better visualization than the canned GP security reports. My next post explains more about those reports.
Download the security worksheets here
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