Customer Visibility: To Restrict Visibility to a Company

In this implementation activity, you will learn how to restrict the visibility of a customer to a particular company.

Story

Suppose that the management of Muffins & Cakes has decided to implement the restriction of customer visibility. One of the customers, Candyy Cafe, works with the Muffins & Cakes company, and users who are employees of other companies should not have access to this customer record. In other words, after the implementation of this restriction, Nenad Pasic, an accountant in SweetLife and Muffins & Cakes, should be able to access the CANDYY customer and Anna Johnson, an accountant at all branches of SweetLife, should not be able to access this customer.

Acting as a system administrator, you need to restrict the visibility of the CANDYY customer to the MUFFINS company only and make sure the appropriate access role has been specified for the branches of this company. You then need to verify that a user without this access role cannot access the customer, and that a user with this access role can access the customer.

Configuration Overview

In the U100 dataset, for the purposes of this activity, the following tasks have been performed:

  • On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the Multibranch Support, Multicompany Support, and Customer and Vendor Visibility Restriction features have been enabled.
  • On the Branches (CS102000) form, for the MRETAIL branch, the Branch MRetail role associated with the branch is specified in the Access Role box (Configuration Settings section) on the Branch Details tab.
  • On the Users (SM201010) form, for the pasic login, the Branch MHead and Branch MRetail roles are selected on the Roles tab. For the johnson login, the Branch MHead and Branch MRetail roles are not selected on the Roles tab.
  • On the Customers (AR303000) form, the CANDYY customer account has been configured.

Process Overview

In this activity, on the Companies (CS101500) form, you will make sure that the access roles for the MHEAD and MRETAIL branches have been set up, and on the Users (SM201010) form, you will make sure that they have been assigned to one of the users. On the Customers (AR303000) form, you will set up a visibility restriction for the needed customer record. You will sign in to the tenant by using a username that is not assigned to any of the needed branch access role and then a username that is assigned to the branch access roles; in both cases, you will check for the ability to view the CANDYY customer. Finally, you will sign in to the MRETAIL branch and on create a document on the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form, where you will select a branch of the MUFFINS company as an originating branch of the document.

System Preparation

Before you start restricting the visibility of a customer record, sign in to a company with the U100 dataset preloaded as a system administrator by using the following credentials:

  • Username: gibbs
  • Password: 123

Step 1: Reviewing Branch Access Roles of the Users

To review the access roles assigned to the pasic and johnson users, do the following:

  1. Open the Companies (CS101500) form.
  2. In the Company ID box, select MUFFINS.
  3. Open the Branches tab.

    Notice that the access roles for the branches of this company–Branch MHead and Branch MRetail–are specified in the Access Role column.

  4. Open the Users (SM201010) form.
  5. In the Login box in the Summary area, select pasic.
  6. In the table on the Roles tab, review the access roles assigned to this user. The Branch MHead and Branch MRetail access roles have been assigned to this user (the Selected check boxes to the left of their rows are selected).
  7. In the Login box, select johnson.
  8. In the table on the Roles tab, review the access roles assigned to this user. Notice that the Branch MHead and Branch MRetail access roles have the Selected check box cleared for their rows; these access roles have not been assigned for this user.

Step 2: Restricting the Visibility of a Customer Record

To restrict the visibility of the CANDYY customer record, do the following:

  1. Open the Customers (AR303000) form.
  2. In the Customer ID box, select CANDYY.
  3. On the Financial tab (Financial Settings section), select MUFFINS - Muffins & Cakes in the Restrict Visibility To box.
  4. On the form toolbar, click Save to save your changes.

Step 3: Reviewing the Visibility of the Customer Record

To review the visibility of the customer record, do the following:

  1. Sign in to the tenant as a user who is not assigned the access role of the branch by using the following credentials:
    • Username: johnson
    • Password: 123
  2. Open the Customers (AR303000) form.
  3. In the Customer ID box of the Summary area, open the lookup table and attempt to find the CANDYY customer.

    Notice that the CANDYY customer is not listed and you cannot find it by using the Search box; this customer is not visible for the current user, because this user is assigned to the role that has access to the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company only and is not assigned to the Branch MHead and Branch MRetail roles, which are the access roles of the company specified for the customer.

  4. Sign in to the tenant as a user who is assigned the access roles of the company's branches by using the following credentials:
    • Username: pasic
    • Password: 123
  5. Open the Customers form.
  6. In the Customer ID box of the Summary area, open the lookup table and attempt to find the CANDYY customer. Notice that the CANDYY customer is listed and thus is visible for the current user, because the user is assigned to the Branch MHead and Branch MRetail roles, which are the access roles for the branches of the company specified for the customer.
  7. On the Shipping tab, review the value in the Default Branch box. The default branch for this customer is not specified. You can select either MHEAD or MRETAIL because the customer's visibility has been restricted to the company with these branches.

    On the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form, when you are creating an AR document and select a customer, the system automatically populates the Branch box on the Financial Details tab with the default branch of the selected location. (This branch is considered the originating branch of the document.) If the default branch is not specified, the originating branch is the current branch to which you are signed in.

Step 4: Selecting the Originating Branch in a Document for the Customer with Restricted Visibility

To create a document for the customer whose visibility has been restricted to the Muffins & Cakes company, do the following:

  1. On the Company and Branch Selection menu, on the top pane of the MYOB Advanced screen, select the Muffins Retail Shop branch.
  2. Open the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form.
    Tip: To open the form for creating a new record, type the form ID in the Search box, and on the Search form, point at the form title and click New right of the title.
  3. Click Add New Record on the form toolbar and specify the following settings in the Summary area:
    • Type: Invoice
    • Customer: CANDYY

      You can select this customer whose visibility has been restricted to the MUFFINS company because you are signed in to a branch of this company.

  4. On the Financial tab, notice that in the Branch box MRETAIL is selected. This is the originating branch of the document.
  5. In the Branch box, select MHEAD. Because you restricted the customer's visibility to the MUFFINS company, you can select this value for the originating branch.
  6. In the Branch box, select HEADOFFICE. The system displays an error message that the use of this customer is restricted in the selected branch.
    Note: For the purposes of this activity, you do not need to further process this document.