The CM4D Data Management and Reporting software can handle a vast amount of information. There are numerous tasks performed by its applications, and many complicated levels of data organization. Users, data, documents, and applications all need to work together seamlessly.
Data is processed, then organized and contained in DataSources. DataSources themselves are complicated entities, and many of them can exist. User's access to the applications of the CM4D Data Management and Reporting software needs to be controlled, adding another level of complexity. Without a way to collect and manage all this information, chaos would ensue.
Consider the following situations. A user starts CM4D and wants to create a new DataSource and use the Feature Editor to add a new feature to an existing DataSource. A second user opens WTC in a browser window and wants to view reports. A third user wants to use DataSmith to output data to a DataSource. How can you control whether or not each one of these users can or should accomplish these tasks?
Controlling how data and users interact in the CM4D Data Management and Reporting software is the function of a web application called Site Manager. With Site Manager, you can control the kinds of things each user can do. Groups of users are created and these groups are assigned Privileges and Access. Privileges allow users to perform specific tasks, such as editing documents and outputting data to a DataSource. Access to sites and DataSources determines whether or not a user is allowed to connect to, use or make changes to DataSources. Users become members of groups, and gain the privileges assigned to the group.
After processing, nominal and sample data is contained in DataSources. A collection of DataSources is contained in a Site. You could possibly have only one DataSource and one site, or you could have many DataSources contained in many sites.