Account provisioning can be a difficult administrative task in various Business Intelligence tools, but in Sigma, it is made simple for an administrator. While Sigma has four default account types (Admin, Creator, Explorer, Viewer), you can also create a completely custom account type for users who may need a particular set of user permissions.
What is a Custom Account in Sigma, and Why Does it Matter?
Sigma is an emerging BI tool that brings the power of Snowflake’s cloud data warehouse and live data connections to a familiar look and feel of the spreadsheet. Sigma was founded in 2014 in the San Francisco Bay Area and is rapidly expanding to customers across the country.
In a previous blog, I described the various default account types and what they can be used for, but in this blog, I’ll go over Custom Account types and how you can best use them in your own Sigma instance. When provisioning account types, you may want a user with specific permissions extending past the default account type, or you may want to roll back certain permissions from that same account. Let’s get into it.
How to Create a Custom Account in Sigma
When creating a custom account, the administrator can select from a variety of permissions and abilities that the created user may inherit. To begin, go to your administrator account page, shown below:
From here, you can see the default account types and the ability to select what default account type you want to set a new, invited user to. If I invite someone new to my Sigma instance, you would see that this user will automatically be provisioned as both a Creator Account Type and be assigned a Creator License Type. Remember, Account Type dictates permissions; License Type has cost implications for your organization.
From this admin screen, click the top right ‘Create New Account Type,’ which will take you to the custom account creation page. Here, you will see a couple of fields:
- Name: This is the name of the account type you want to create. Since this account type will be saved for future use, name it something you will remember, like ‘Finance Team’ or ‘Executive.’
- Description: This can be used to write a brief description of the account type. Was this made in 2022? Or maybe it was an ask from the CTO? This provides a bit of context to the account type.
- The License of Account Type: This one is important. Depending on the permissions granted to the account, this has an implication on what License Type this Custom Account will inherit.
Remember, Sigma will assign the License of Account Type based on the highest level of permission you choose. For example, in the screenshot above, I selected only Viewer license permissions so my license type is Viewer (top right box). And in the screenshot below, I’ve added one Creator level permission, so the minimum account type needed to provide that access is now upgraded to Creator.
From this screen, click ‘Submit’ at the top right of the screen, and you will create your custom account type. When you view your custom account, you will see the name, description, license type (dictated by your permissions), and the permissions explicitly listed out. You can click ‘edit’ to edit this information at any time after creation, or you can add members to the group. You can also invite new members from this screen as well to automatically have this new custom account assigned to the new member.
In the screenshot below, you can see I added my colleague Katrina to my Custom Account Type. I did this by selecting the blue Add Members button:
Now that Katrina is in the custom account type, let’s check to see what her account type is in the admin console. We can see she now has a Custom Account Type:
If I want to change someone’s account type or if an account was assigned erroneously, you can open the custom account that (or any account, this is not exclusive to custom accounts) the user was assigned to and select the three-dot menu next to their name. As an admin, this will allow you to ‘Reassign account type’ for the user. From there, you can select what account you want:
The screenshot below shows the Reassign Account Type screen; assign the new user account type that you want to assign to your user, and click Confirm:
Closing
In closing, it is very easy to provision accounts in Sigma and create custom account types. This is especially helpful if the four default account types do not fully cover your user needs. Keep in mind that the permissions you choose for your custom account type will dictate the license type that your users will inherit; this will dictate the cost that your user will incur in your organization.
With seamless integration between Sigma Computing and Snowflake, simple steps to provision users, and interactive visualizations and dashboards, now is your time to start exploring what Sigma has to offer to your organization! Click the link below to begin your free trial of Sigma!
FAQs
Apart from custom account types, there are four default account types that you can assign to a user in Sigma:
- Administrator – This role can connect to new data sources and assign privileges to new users. This is a classic admin account type.
- Creator – This role can create new workbooks, join next data sources, and upload CSVs. This account is usually for leaders and developers.
- Explorer – This role can create and edit workbooks and interact with saved workbooks on Sigma. This account is usually for business analysts or data analysts.
- Viewer – This role can view Sigma workbooks on Sigma. They have limited interactive abilities, and this account is usually for executives or general viewers.
As shown above, as an admin, you are able to go to the ‘People’ section of the admin console and change their account type. Additionally, you are able to change the permissions for a custom account type by going to that custom account type. Click ‘Edit’ and reassign any permission to that account type. Remember, this will have an implication on the license type for your user and, therefore, the cost for your Sigma instance.
