ACT! Security Model 9

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Cascading Access

Record security is further limited by “cascading access,” which means that the record security of certain types of records (parent records) affects the security of other types of records (extended data records) Parent and extended data records are explained in the following sections.

A parent record is a Contact, Company, or Group. These three top-level record types can exist independently of any other type of record in ACT! and can own extended data. “Extended data” refers to record types which cannot exist independently, such as Notes, Histories, Activities, Opportunities, and secondary Contacts. Extended data always belongs to one or more parent records (Contacts, Companies, or Groups).

Notes and Histories can belong to Contacts, Companies, Groups, and/or any combination of those. Activities and Opportunities can belong only to one or more contacts. Secondary Contacts can belong only to one parent contact record.

A user must have access to a parent record (Contact, Company, or Group) to access any extended data (Notes, History, Activities, Opportunities, or secondary Contacts) belonging to that parent record.
Example: A user who cannot access a Contact also cannot access a note belonging to that
contact, regardless of the ACL or record manager of the note.

If an extended data record belongs to (is shared by) two or more parent records of any type, accessibility to the extended data record is limited to those users with access to at least one of the parent records.

Cascading access does not grant any more access to an extended data record than the user has to the extended data record itself.
Example: User A has access to a contact, Joe Smith, but cannot access a private note owned by User B (record manager) for Joe Smith.