AssetWise has the related concepts of persons and users. A person is an object in the community that represents a real person. A user is a person who has a user account that enables them to log in to the community. The distinction is made because you can have a person in the community that does not have a user account, if that person does not need access to the community.

There are several ways persons can be created in / added to a community:

• Using a form in AssetWise Director. This lets you create a single person and then define attributes and relationships for that person as needed.
• Using a template in AssetWise Director. This lets you create a single person with a set of predefined attributes and relationships.
• By making a copy of an existing person in AssetWise Director.
• By allowing a person to be created automatically when a user with either a Windows account or a Bentley account attempts to log in to the community. For more information, see "To Enable Persons to be Created Automatically Upon Login", in the AssetWise System Management Console Help.
• By synchronizing the community with Active Directory to create multiple persons with Windows-based user accounts, all in one step. For more information, see "To Configure Active Directory Synchronization Settings", in the AssetWise System Management Console Help.
• Through a custom provisioning spreadsheet. This is used (among other things) to bulk-load a set of users into the community. Contact Bentley Professional Services for details.

After a person has been created, you can modify the person's attributes. This includes adding or editing the person's user account information, assigning roles and security, and associating the person to other objects in the community.

Each person or organizational unit can be associated with many user-definable Directory Type entries, which can contain data such as:

• Physical and postal address
• Email address
• Telephone and fax numbers
• Any other directory information

Appropriate Directory Type entries must be defined in the Maintain List Values tables beforehand. If a system generated person code is required, an appropriate numbering mask must be defined in the System Admin tab under System Defaults > Identification.