Setting up the security permissions for users in Open Dental is crucial to ensuring appropriate security and a smooth workflow in your practice. In this post, we’ll discuss how to do this, along with how to set up permissions for a few common scenarios.

Creating Users and User Groups

It is critically important that each staff member has their own unique user login. This helps you customize security permissions and track actions made in Open Dental, through the Audit Trail.

To start, you’ll want to create User Groups. These dictate which permissions users have. There are already a couple default groups when you start using Open Dental. You can customize these and add additional groups as needed.

Next, it’s time to create users. You can create users in a few ways. In the Setup menu, click Security Add User, or in Security Setup, click Add User to open the User Edit window. From here, you can set user names, passwords, and select User Groups to assign permissions.

For providers, you can easily create new users once you’ve added providers to Provider Setup by using the Create Users area. You can select providers from the list, choose a User Group, and, after clicking Create, users are automatically created and attached to the provider with an auto-generated user name and default password. You can customize these users from Security Setup as needed.

If you have staff with multiple roles (e.g., an assistant who helps with front office duties) or who need extra permissions, their user can be assigned multiple User Groups. This gives them all of the permissions assigned between all of the groups – no need to create a custom User Group just for one person. Select a user in Security Setup to easily view which permissions they have.

Once your users are set up, if a user does not have permission for an action, they’ll get a Security Warning or options may be greyed out or hidden. Pay attention to the security warnings, as they will note what security permission is needed!

Global Security

In addition to individual User Groups, there are also Global Security Settings that you’ll want to review and customize. These generally affect all users. You can determine password requirements, set Time Card Security, and create a Global Lock Date to prevent changes to historical data.

Common Scenarios

Here are a few common scenarios and how to set them up. Information on all of Open Dental’s Security Permissions can be found in our manual.

Restrict timecard visibility and ability to edit

1. The correct Employee must be assigned to each user using the time clock.
2. In Global Security Settings, check “Time card security enabled”. This will allow you to set the other global time card settings, which can prevent users from seeing other employee Time cards or making changes to their own.
   To give permission to a user to see or edit other employee time cards, the user must have the “Edit All Time Cards” permission.

For more scenarios on setting up permissions for time cards, see the “Time Card Security” section on our Time Card manual page.

A user should be able to edit procedure notes, but not a procedure fee on completed procedures

Make sure the user has the “Edit Note on Completed Procedure” permission but not the “Edit Completed Procedure” permission.

A user should be able to view fee schedules, but not edit them

Deny the “Fee Schedule Edit” permission. To also prevent a user from making changes to procedure details (e.g., Paint Type, Treatment Area, etc.), also deny the “Procedure Code Edit” permission.

If you have any questions or just want a little help setting up your security, reach out to our knowledgeable support staff.

Information in this post reflects features available in Open Dental Version 24.1. For the most up-to-date information, please visit our manual.