Setting Up and Maintaining the Platform

As an administrator, you might be responsible for setting up or maintaining any of the following features.

Applications, questionnaires, and solutions

End users work with records. As an administrator, you are responsible for building (or maintaining) applications or questionnaires, which contain the records, and for creating the fields and other elements that define the structure of the records.

Note: If you are using any of the Archer use cases, you might be responsible for customizing the out-of-the-box applications or questionnaires to meet your organization's requirements.

Finally, you can group related applications and questionnaires into a solution.

Users and access control

Access control provides a framework for maintaining users, roles, and security parameters, and for assigning access rights at the system, application, record, and field levels.

• User accounts allow users to log on to Archer.
• User groups provide a means of grouping users based on organizational structure or geographic locations.
• Access roles are collections of application-level and page-level rights that an administrator can create and assign to any number of users and groups to control user privileges (create, read, update, and delete).
• Security parameters are rules for controlling user access to Archer and its individual pages.
• LDAP Configuration streamlines the administration of users and groups by allowing updates and changes that were made in the LDAP server to be automatically reflected in Archer.

Communication tools

The Platform offers multiple tools for communication with and between your end users and for ensuring that your users have access to the right information in the system.

• Notifications alert users to specific conditions within records, particularly when it is something that requires their attention or action (for example, a record is ready to be reviewed).
• Mail merge functionality allows you to export data into a Microsoft Word document.
• An Alias name is a short name for a unique object in the system that is human readable, but also can be used in code or as a reference in configuration processes.

Data integration

You can use Archer as a point of consolidation for enterprise data of any type for supporting analysis and process management. Archer is vendor neutral, content independent, and provides three integration methods for consolidating data from disparate enterprise systems for governance, risk, and compliance management.

• Data imports allow you to import data into an application or sub-form from an external data file on a one-time basis.
• Data feeds allow you to build dynamic integrations with external enterprise systems and files that can run automatically on an on-going schedule.
• Data gateway allows you to connect Archer to an external data source without bringing the data into the Instance Database directly.
• The Archer Web Services API also offers you a programmatic interface for automating the exchange of information between Archer and an external application.
• Finally, data publications allow you to extract data from your Archer system and load it into external systems for data analysis and modeling.

Data packaging

Packaging allows you to copy applications and other objects from one Archer instance to another, for the purposes of transferring large changes from development to test to production instances or receiving and installing updates to Archer solutions.

Reporting

Any search against an application or questionnaire that you want to save and reuse at a later time can be saved as a report. Archer offers prebuilt system reports and allows you to create your own custom reports.

Workspaces, dashboards, and iViews

Workspaces, dashboards, and iViews are the visual tools that provide users quick access to records and information related to their job function. You can create dashboards and iViews to display reports, links, embedded web pages, RSS feeds, and other custom content. You can display these iViews and dashboards to end users through workspaces, which are pages of related content.

Customizing the system

• You can match Archer to your brand by using the Appearance menu to customize colors and logos across the user interface.
• Globalization features in Archer enable administrators and users to adapt the interface and solutions to appear in languages and formats that meet the needs of different geographical and cultural regions.