Securing Data

Cogynt Authoring includes several features to prevent unauthorized access and accidental data loss.

Permissions

For security reasons, permissions are required to do anything in Cogynt Authoring.

Types of Permissions

Cogynt checks for two types of permissions:

• authoring.models – Determines what users can do with models.
• authoring.deployments – Determines what users can do with deployments and deployment targets.

Each type of permission can have up to two actions associated with it:

• read – Allows the user to view artifacts of the corresponding category.
• write – Allows the user to create and edit artifacts of the corresponding category.

Configuring Permissions

Permissions can be granted or revoked using the Cogynt Authentication tool.

The Cogynt Authentication tool can be accessed by either:

• Using the app switcher in Cogynt Workstation. For more information, refer to the Cogynt Workstation User Guide.
• Changing the browser's URL to auth-[env_name].[domain_name], where [env_name] is the name of the development environment to use, and [domain_name] is the domain where the environment is hosted (including the suffix, such as .com or .org).

To configure user permissions:

1. Access the Cogynt Authentication tool.
2. On the left toolbar, click the View Roles & Permissions (lock) icon.
3. Click the Roles tab to configure permissions for a specific user, or the Groups tab to configure permissions for a group.
4. Locate the role or group to modify, and click > in the right of its column.
5. In the Permissions panel:
   1. Click a product’s name to expand the list of its associated permissions.
   2. Note the descriptions for each permission.
   3. Check a checkbox to grant its corresponding permission, or uncheck it to revoke the corresponding permission.
   4. Click Update to save the changes to the user or group permissions, or click Cancel to discard them.

Checking Permissions

To find your permissions:

1. Click the User icon in the top-right of the application window.
2. Click Profile.
3. Under the Permissions section, note the permissions associated with your user account.

Auto Save

When an entity's information is edited in Cogynt Authoring, the change is automatically saved if the modified data is valid (according to some mechanical checks that Cogynt performs). For example, if a text field expects a number and a numeric string is entered for it, Cogynt saves that value.

Warning

Cogynt Authoring cannot verify the semantic meaning behind the information modified.

For example, if an event pattern is altered and uses the wrong user data schema as a result, Cogynt interprets this a valid change even though the incorrect value is unwanted.

Resource Locking

When a modeling resource (such as an event pattern, event type, or deployment target) is accessed, Cogynt Authoring attempts to acquire a lock for that resource. If the resource is already locked by someone else, no changes can be made to it until its lock is released. This prevents model data from being accidentally overwritten by multiple users accessing the same resource. Meanwhile, any changes that the lock holder makes to the resource are shown in real time.

If a locked resource is accessed, a lock icon appears in the upper-right of the screen, and no changes can be made. An alert message appears in the upper-right of the screen once the lock is released.