Each time a grantor goes through the Grant Authority wizard, it results in one new row in the recipient's Person view. Each row represents one assignment. An assignment consists of:

• a grantor
• a recipient
• a business function
• a organization
• a privilege
• none, one, or several limits, depending on how the privilege has been defined
• an expiration condition
• an "grantable" condition (which determines whether the recipient can, in turn, grant this authority)

If the grantor selects more than one population, project, task, etc., all the other elements of the assignment apply equally to each of the selections.

For example, if the grantor selects two projects in the same assignment, the same spending limit will apply to both projects. If the projects require different spending limits, they must be assigned separately.

Authority subsystems are loosely equivalent to University business offices and the business systems that support them.

In Authority Manager, lists of business functions are grouped by authority subsystem to help distinguish between similar functions in different business areas.
Example: Financial approvals and HR approvals.

A set of privileges that represent a defined University business activity.
Examples: Purchasing; Admissions; Payroll.

When granting authority in Authority Manager, you will see only those business functions that include privileges you are authorized to grant.

Authority can be granted to anyone in the Stanford administrative or academic communities. These include:

• all regular faculty
• all regular staff
• casual/temporary staff
• instructional staff
• department sponsored ids (contractors, consultants, temporary help, etc.)
• current students

If a person has authority, and their status changes so that they are no longer a member of these communities, their authority will be automatically revoked.

Only members of these communities can log into Authority Manager to view or grant authority.

The act of assigning authority that you have been authorized to extend to others.

You can be authorized in two ways:

• someone has granted you authority with the "can extend" condition
• someone has made you their authority-granting proxy, and they have authority with the "can extend" condition

Some privileges apply only within the projects, populations, dollar amounts, etc. specified by the grantor - these are collectively referred to as "limits". Some privileges are, by their nature, unlimited.

If a privilege has limits defined, step 5 of the Grant wizard in Authority Manager will take you through each limit in turn. (If no limits are defined, the wizard will skip step 5.) Some limits allow more than one selection; all limits require at least one selection.

• Student Systems & Data
  • admit center (1 or more)
  • item type (1 or more; ranges allowed)
• Financial Systems GL
  • project (1 or more; or "all")
  • task (1 or more; or "all")
  • award (1 or more; or "all")
  • principal owner (1 only)
  • spending limit (1 only)

Authority Manager sends email notifications to grantors and recipients of authority for various reasons, including:

• new authority granted
• authority limits or conditions changed
• prerequisites to be met; with a reminder after 14 days
  [this notification has been temporarily suspended during the rollout of Oracle Financials]
• authority condition will expire in 30 days; with a reminder at 7 days
• authority condition has expired
• assignments of authority-granting proxy or acting approver
• reminders when acting approver starts and ends

Wherever possible, notifications of a given type are combined into one daily email. Some situations (such as an acting approver assignment that starts immediately) trigger an immediate notification.

Any department or group in the official University structure. All privileges are granted in the context of an organization; a manager can grant authority only within her own organization and its sub-organizations.

Note that the organization applies to the privilege, not the recipient of the authority.
Example: A director might grant some authority for a project owned by her organization to a person in another organization.

Some privileges have requirements (successful completion of training, signature on file, etc.) that must be met by the individual before the privilege can take effect.

When a prerequisite is completed, the individual is added to a special workgroup, and Authority Manager is notified to activate the pending authority.

A specific task or set of tasks that can be granted to an individual. Privileges are self-contained - for example, the "administer leave" privilege covers all the data and tasks required to do that job, in all affected business systems.

The ability to reinstate authority by individual privilege. You can only restore those privileges that you can grant.

The ability to reinstate authority by authority subsystem in mass. You can only restore in mass those privileges that you can grant.

The act of removing authority. You can only remove authority that you have been authorized to extend to others.