Groups and user lists are two different ways of grouping users together in the datasource.

Groups are typically created by the administrator as a way to group together users who need the same access rights to folders and documents. Once a group is created, you can then assign that group permission to a folder, rather than assigning each user permission to the folder, one at a time.

User lists provide a way to group together users, groups and also other user lists. There are two types of user lists: access lists and mailing lists. The administrator will create an access list to group together users, groups and other access lists who need the same access rights to folders and documents. The administrator will create a mailing list (also referred to as Global Address Books) to group together users with email addresses, groups, and other mailing lists, so users with email addresses can send and receive messages in ProjectWise Explorer.

You can manage the membership and ownership of groups and user lists in ProjectWise Explorer using the User / Group Management dialog (Tools > User Management). (This same dialog is available in ProjectWise Administrator.)

To manage the membership of a particular group or user list, the user you are logged in as must be an owner of that group or user list. You do not need to be a member of a group or user list to be an owner of it. Groups and user lists can have multiple owners. For any group of which you are an owner, you can add users to the group, and you can also add other users as owners of the group. You can also add a group to a user list. For any user list of which you are an owner, you can add users, groups, or other user lists to the user list, and you can also make other users owners of the user list. When adding a group or a user list to another user list, you must be owner the group or user list you are adding, and the user list you are adding it to.

Owners have a star icon next to their name in the User / Group Management dialog. When a user list is an owner of an object, the members in that user list become owners of that object by inheritance, and are referred to as inherited owners. Inherited owners have the star icon, plus their normal user icon displays with a down-arrow, to denote that ownership is inherited.