Configure User Providers

AVEVA Work Tasks Repository can be configured to use any of the following user providers for user authentication:

• Active Directory

• ASP.NET Membership

• Repository User Provider

• Forms

• List

• Microsoft Entra ID

User authentication is required to enable users to participate in human activities that form a part of the Workflow.

User authorization is handled in AVEVA Work Tasks through AVEVA Work Tasks security.

Active Directory

Select Active Directory as the user provider. The logged in Active Directory is displayed by default in the Active Directory Data Source and Search Base fields. Enter another LDAP and search base connection, if required. Use the Test LDAP button from the UI to test the LDAP connection. If Test LDAP is unsuccessful, enter the authentication user name and password and check Test LDAP again.

The user information from Active Directory, like the SamAccountName, Display Name and Email ID, gets stored in a table. This is done to avoid sending frequent requests to the Active Directory. In addition, the user credentials are validated by using the Microsoft Win32 API LogonUser.

ASP.NET Membership

Select ASP.NET Membership as the user provider. Enter the connection string to the data source and application name. Use the Test ASP.NET Membership button on the UI to test connection. The ASP.NET membership table already contains a column for password. Ensure that the value for the column PasswordFormat is set to 0 as this field currently supports only clear text format.

Forms

To retrieve user related information from another application database, select Forms. The following information must be provided for Forms user Data:

• Datasource: Enter the data source for the user table.

• DataTable: Enter the name of the table that stores user information. If user data is present in multiple tables, create a view and enter the name of the view in this field.

• User Entity Properties: Each column in the table or view can be provided as an attribute to the User Entity. Properties defined here are available to Workflow during design and execution. The User Entity properties must be provided as XML.

  Sample XML Schema

  <properties>

                   <property name="name" type="string" displayname="Full Name" purpose="name"/>

                   <property name="empname" type="string" displayname="Name" purpose="identifier"/>

                   <property name="Address" type="string" displayname="Address"/>

                   <property name="Sex" type="string" displayname="Sex"/>

                   <property name="Email" type="string" displayname="Email" purpose="email"/>

                 </properties>

  Tags used in XML schema are:

  • <properties>: The collection of fields that requires to be retrieved from the source database object.

  • <property>: A single field reference in the source table or view.

    Attributes of the <property> element are:      

  • name: Refers to the name of the column in the Database.

  • type: Refers to the type of the column (int, string or guid).

  • displayname: Refers to the name for display within .AVEVA Work Tasks

  • purpose: Indicates how AVEVA Work Tasks should treat this column (name, email, and identifier).

  • display: Indicates whether the column requires to be displayed or not (true or false).         

• User Provider Properties:

  Map the user entity properties to the fields in the user provider. To associate the password information in the Enterprise Console for forms authentication:

  In the entity provider, add a column as purpose="password" as in the example below:

<property name="Password" type="string” display="false" purpose="password" />.

Currently, the default provider supports only clear text password.

List

When a Repository is created, AVEVA Work Tasks user tables are automatically added to the Repository database. Select List to use this table. Lists within the AVEVA Work Tasks List Provider can be customized, see User List for more information.

Repository User Provider

Select the Repository User Provider to set the password for the system administrator (username: admin). This password will be used to access the Enterprise Console configured with the Repository User Provider.

The password must have at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one special character, one number, a minimum length of 8 characters, and no blank spaces.

Note: All characters from A-Z, a-z, and 0-9 are allowed, along with all special characters except space. Foreign special characters are not permitted.

Microsoft Entra ID

Select Microsoft Entra ID as the user provider. To configure Microsoft Entra ID, see Microsoft Entra Settings.

For more information on Microsoft Entra ID, see the links:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/services/active-directory/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/active-directory-federation-services