12.5 Controlling device assignments for groups

You may want to control the use of devices for individual groups; for example, you may have multiple subsidiary organizations using your MyID system, all of whom use the same license pool, but you may want to restrict one of the organizations to have a maximum number of devices, and to be able to assign and issue those devices for a limited time.

This feature helps control device assignments for individual group, but it does not override or modify how MyID system licenses are consumed, which are calculated for the entire installation.

To do this, you can create a new group to which you assign all users from that organization, or use an existing group that contains all users from that organization. Create or amend the group using the Add Group or Amend Group workflows, and set the following options:

• Device Assignment End Date – select the last date on which you can assign or issue devices for this group. After this date, you will no longer be able to assign or issue devices to people in this group.

• Maximum Number of Assigned Devices – type the maximum number of devices you can assign or issue to this group. Once the number of devices assigned or issued to people in this group reaches this number, you will no longer be able to assign or issue devices to people in this group.

You can also set these options through the MyID Core API by setting the deviceLimit and expiryDate options when adding or editing a group.

You can use the Assigned Devices by Group report in the MyID Operator Client to help monitor these limits. This report lists each group that has devices assigned or issued to it, and displays the limits you have set on the group. See the Assigned Devices by Group report section in the MyID Operator Client guide.

12.5.1 Limitations

This section contains information on limitations of this feature.

12.5.1.1 Error messages

Some legacy operations in MyID may display non-specific errors when these limits are triggered. For example, the following workflows fail with errors similar to:

MyID is not configured to issue this card. Contact your administrator to check your system configuration.

• Issue Card

• Collect My Card

• Request Device (Assign)

• Reinstate Card

Error details capture in the MyID system events may include information stating that the target user's group has expired, or has exceeded the maximum number of devices.

In addition, assigning devices using Lifecycle API is not affected by the Device Assignment End Date or the Maximum Number of Assigned Devices options.

12.5.1.2 Changing groups

It is possible to exceed the number of assigned devices for a group if you change the group of a person who already has a device issued; for example, if Group A has a limit of 10 devices, and already has 10 devices issued, if you issue a device to a person in Group B, then change that person to Group A, Group A has 11 devices assigned; however, no further devices can be issued to people already in Group A.

12.5.1.3 Inheriting limits

This feature does not automatically inherit or assign limits to groups – where a limit needs to be placed on each group, you must set the value accordingly. Groups that are created automatically will not have any limits set unless you add the values to each.

12.5.1.4 Lifecycle API

You cannot add or amend group limits using the Lifecycle API.