It is all a bit confusing using Progress Data Cloud (PDC). It has a list of users, but they are actually in your authentication provider, but they change their password in your systems not PDC, users are assigned permissions in PDC but not in any of the services…how does this all work?

How do I login?

PDC provides customers with the ability to utilize their own "authentication provider". What does that actually mean? Well, it means that if you have an account in your corporate IT systems that you use, you can use the same account to login to PDC - Literally, you use the exact same user name, same password, same MFA, whatever that you would use when you use any of your IT systems. What happens is that when you try to login PDC asks your corporate systems to validate (authenticate) you then, assuming all is good, PDC will log you into your tenancy.

Which button do I press to login?

When you access your PDC tenancy URL you may have several buttons that can be pressed to login, if so, which one do you use? If you only have one button it is probably pretty simple to understand which to press, but you could have several to choose from, such as this:

Each of these buttons, here "Google", "Microsoft work account" and "ProgressID", represents a different "authentication provider" that has been configured for your PDC tenancy, Google authentication, Microsoft work authentication and Progress' own "ProgressID". You should click the button that corresponds to the normal method you use to access your corporate IT systems. For example, if you use a "Google" account to login, click the red "Google" button (in this example), but if you use "Microsoft" to login then click the blue "Microsoft work account" button (in this example), etc.

If you don't know which of the buttons to click in your tenancy, please contact your PDC administrator to clarify.

I am now logged in but how does PDC know what I can and can't do?

In PDC there is the concept of a "tenant administrator". This is one person (or more) in your company that has been designated as someone who is responsible for setting user permissions, which in PDC are designated "roles". They decide which "roles" you are assigned and, indeed, whether you are even allowed to login in the first place. When your tenancy was first created a person will have been identified for this role but that person can also designate other people in your company as "tenant co-administrator" which gives them the same level of access with the minor adjustment that they can't create more "tenant co-administrator" users.

User permissions are assigned using PDC "roles". These "roles" designate certain permissions within PDC. For example, the "API User" role for "Semaphore" services means I can access certain Semaphore APIs. Roles can be specific to particular applications or they can be more generally relevant for PDC as a whole. For example, the "Tenant Administrator" role is a PDC role that allows your tenant administrators to do what they need to do. 

So, the "tenant administrator" (or any "tenant co-administrator") is responsible for assigning users the roles they need to use PDC correctly. 

One thing to note is that if you go to your personal "Account Settings" page in your PDC tenancy (click on the "user" icon in the top right then click on your user name to show this page) you will see a list of the roles you have been assigned mid-way down the page. Roles are listed in tab groups "Cloud" contains general PDC roles while other tabs contain product specific roles. All roles are shown here with those you have been assigned having the "switch" set beside them, for example:

How do our hosted services know what I can and can't do? 

PDC passes your user and role information into the services you have purchased so it knows who you are and what you are able to do in the service. For example, if you are assigned the PDC role "MarkLogic Administrator" then when you access the MarkLogic Server service "admin" endpoint you will have administrator level access to MarkLogic Server, however, if I was only assigned "MarkLogic Monitor" I would not be able to access to the "admin" endpoint at all and, if I did, I would not have permissions to modify anything at all.

When I use my API key, how does PDC know what it can/can't do?

Your PDC API key is unique to you so PDC uses that to determine what roles you have been assigned, therefore, what you can/can't do using the API - When you use it in your applications PDC knows exactly which user it applies to so knows exactly what your permissions are. Due to this it is very important that you keep your API key secret and do not share with anyone. 

How do I change my password for PDC?

You connect to PDC using your company's corporate IT authentication so PDC itself does not store your password since PDC relies on your company's systems to validate your account. To change the password to access PDC all you need to do is change your password in your company's systems as you do normally then the next time you try to login to PDC you will be required by your corporate IT authentication to provide your new password if it you have not already provided it.

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Further Information

• Sign in to Progress Data Cloud - This contains details of the login process.
• PDC Built In Roles - This contains a list of all roles (permissions) built-in PDC along with details on what each of the roles allows you to do.