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Set Up User Access Management for Award Management

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This content applies solely to Award Management, which must be purchased separately from the Appian base platform. This content was written for Appian 26.6 and may not reflect the interfaces or functionality of other Appian versions.

Award Management (AM) 2.6 and later integrates with User Access Management (UAM) to provide centralized control over user roles and permissions. UAM replaces direct group manipulation in Appian Designer with a unified administration interface through Acquisition Central.

After installing AM, configure UAM to assign users to roles and manage their permissions through the Acquisition Central UAM interface.

Prerequisites for UAM in Award Management

Before configuring UAM for AM, ensure the following requirements are met:

  • Acquisition Central: Version 26.6.1.6 or later must be installed in the environment. UAM is a component of Acquisition Central.
  • Award Management: AM 2.6 or later must be installed. Earlier versions of AM do not support UAM integration.
  • Deployment user: The deployment user must have system administrator access to Acquisition Central.

Caution:  After UAM integration, all group membership changes must go through UAM. Do not modify AM role group membership directly in Appian Designer. UAM manages these groups automatically.

How UAM works with Award Management

UAM provides a centralized interface for managing user access across all installed Government Acquisition Management (GAM) solutions. AM registers its roles and permission sets with UAM during installation, making them available in the UAM administration interface.

UAM organizes access control into three levels:

  • Roles: Business personas such as Contracting Officer or Finance Representative. Each role is backed by an Appian Group. Users are assigned to roles through UAM.
  • Permission sets: Logical groupings of related capabilities within AM. Permission sets bundle permissions by business function, such as "Award - Create and Import Award" or "Solicitation - Manage Solicitation."
  • Permissions: Granular access gates backed by Appian Groups. Permissions represent individual actions that AM enforces at runtime.

UAM manages group membership on behalf of administrators. The underlying Appian Groups remain the runtime enforcement mechanism. AM expressions still evaluate group membership, but the groups are UAM-managed permission groups rather than hardcoded role groups.

Permission sets and contextual visibility

A permission set grants the capability to perform an action. Contextual visibility logic within AM determines whether the action is available on a specific record.

Both conditions must be true for an action to appear:

  • Permission set in UAM: Determines whether the user has the capability to perform the type of action.
  • Contextual visibility in AM: Determines whether the specific record's state, assignment, or department permits the action at that moment.

Consider a Contracting Officer with the "Award - Manage Award" permission set. The permission set grants the capability to release an award. However, the Release action only appears when the award is in Approved status. The permission set grants capability, and the award status check determines availability.

AM roles registered in UAM

AM registers the following roles in UAM. Shared GAM roles are registered at the Acquisition Central level:

Role Abbreviation Appian Group Constant
Contracting Officer / Procurement Officer CO/PO AS_GAM_GRP_CONTRACTING_OFFICER
Contract Specialist / Procurement Specialist CS/PS AS_GAM_GRP_CONTRACT_SPECIALIST
Contracting Manager CM AS_GAM_GRP_CONTRACTING_MANAGER
Program Manager PM AS_GAM_GRP_PROGRAM_MANAGER
Contract Officer's Representative / Procurement Representative COR/PR AS_GAM_GRP_CONTRACTING_OFFICER_REPRESENTATIVE
Finance Representative FR AS_AM_GRP_FINANCE_REPRESENTATIVE
IT/Policy/Legal Group User IT/Policy/Legal AS_GAM_GRP_IT, AS_GAM_GRP_POLICY, AS_GAM_GRP_LEGAL
Admin Admin AS_GAM_GRP_APPIAN_ADMINISTRATORS

Note:  Shared GAM roles prefixed with AS_GAM_GRP_ are registered once at the Acquisition Central level and owned by Acquisition Central. AM-specific roles prefixed with AS_AM_GRP_ are registered by the AM installation package.

Assign users to roles in UAM

After AM is installed, assign users to AM roles through UAM:

  1. Sign in to the Acquisition Central site.
  2. Go to User Access > Users.
  3. Search for and select the user to open their profile.
  4. Click UPDATE USER.
  5. In the Roles tab, select the AM roles to assign, such as Contracting Officer and Contracting Manager.
  6. Click UPDATE.

The user gains access to the permission sets associated with that role. Permissions take effect within five minutes after UAM synchronizes group membership.

To remove a user from a role, deselect the role in the user's profile and click UPDATE. UAM revokes access within five minutes.

Update User dialog showing the Roles tab with Available Roles on the left and Selected Roles on the right.

View and modify role-to-permission set mappings

UAM provides default mappings between AM roles and permission sets. The defaults match the Roles and Permissions matrix. Administrators modify these mappings to customize access for their organization.

To view the default mappings:

  1. Go to User Access > Permission Sets.
  2. Select an AM permission set to view which roles are mapped to it.

To modify a mapping:

  1. Go to User Access > Permission Sets.
  2. Select the permission set to modify.
  3. Click UPDATE PERMISSION SET.
  4. In the Roles tab, add or remove role assignments.
  5. Click UPDATE.

Update Award permission set dialog showing the Roles tab with Available Roles on the left and Selected Roles on the right.

Caution:  Modifying default role-to-permission set mappings changes what actions are available to users in those roles. Review the Roles and Permissions page to understand the impact before making changes.

Upgrade from earlier AM versions

Existing AM customers upgrading to AM 2.6 or later do not need to remap group references or migrate user assignments. The UAM integration preserves all existing access. Previous role group memberships are inherited automatically during the upgrade process.

Vendor research permission sets

AM 2.6 and later registers vendor research permission sets, such as Research - View Vendor Research Requests and Research - Submit Vendor Research Request, for completeness. These permission sets support the current vendor research workflow. Appian deactivates these permission sets when the RPA-backed vendor research feature is deprecated in a future release.

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