Using Directories with Authentications - enabling the power of groups

[TheClaret]

Hello, I have just been experimenting with the new Directories feature to understand what utility it would bring to my applications. I have lots of different roles in my apps each with differing access to datapages. One challenge I face is where a user may be assigned multiple roles. Prior to Directories, I would have multiple authentications looking at different attributes of my users to determine if they fell within or not. This is sub-optimal and untidy as I have multiple fields in my record associating people to roles rather than a multi-select list. So, when I saw the groups feature in directories, and the ability to add a user to multiple groups, my heart began to race (as much as a heart might race during app development!!).

I set up a dummy directory with a couple of users across a couple of groups and went off to create the authentications only to discover I can't seem to associate groups to an authentication. The lowest level it permits is the directory itself. Have I missed something here?  I appreciate that this is just a beta and that this may be a feature to follow up with but at the moment I can see no benefit (to me!) from the Groups feature.

Anybody else had any joy here?

I have already browsed the function reference and the video on the directories feature...in case anyone was wondering  

[vidierre]

@TheClaret I did some tests with directories and I think you are right: up to now we have a beta version where group can be defined but they cannot be used yet. I could be silly but, like you, I found nothing referencing how to use groups neither in videos or in the help sections.

However I found very interesting it and all the features availabe now like the user portal, two factor authentication and password enforcement policies. I hope that we will see groups used directly from datapages soon. This should be done both to control datapages and records  access.
It is my opinion that this would allow more manageable changes to our apps.

[TheClaret]

Yes I agree @vidierre, this looks like this has the potential to be very useful once it is fully rolled out, we have been building our own bespoke functionality to provide some of these user management aspects but having a Caspio natively provide it would significantly simplify the ongoing maintenance of these. I suppose the challenge for us is that we will have finished our build before this matures and then we face the challenge of backing out what we have built and then rebuilding against directories.I suppose there will always be new features just round the corner, driving a pipeline of change to keep us employed!  

[JolliBeng]

Thank you @TheClaretand @vidierrefor your interest in the Directories feature. Currently, Groups can be used in App connections. Product team is looking into adding Groups support for Authentications in future releases. 

Please note that you can use directory as a data source or a View, so you can assign directory users to Authentication based on filtering criteria in a view. If you have more questions, please contact support. Check out the available video tutorials.

[Aether]

Hey there! Caspio releases new enhancements to the Caspio Directories feature, check this out: 

- Ability to enhance user profiles with field values using Text64000, Number, Integer, and Yes/No data types 
- Ability to include user profile fields using data from a related table
- Ability to customize the fields shown in the user list view 
Source: https://howto.caspio.com/release-notes/caspio-37-0/caspio-37-0/#:~:text=Enhancements to Caspio Directories

[Aether]

Hey there! Caspio releases new enhancements to the Caspio Directories feature, check this out: 

• Page redirection options for sign-in and sign-out.
• Single logout (SLO) from third-party connected apps, so users are automatically logged out from the directory when logging out from a connected app.
• Ability to display a custom background image on the sign-in page, providing you with another way to customize your app’s login experience.

Source: https://howto.caspio.com/release-notes/caspio-43-0/#:~:text=Enhancements to Caspio Directories