Types of users in ThoughtFarmer

There are 3 types of users in ThoughtFarmer. Before you begin, decide which type of user to create:

• Regular users are created, managed, and stored entirely in ThoughtFarmer.
• Active Directory users are tied to an Active Directory user account and mapped to a ThoughtFarmer user profile.
• External users have accounts in a third party application and signing into that application also logs them in to ThoughtFarmer.

Active Directory users can use any ThoughtFarmer-supported authentication method. Regular users must use Forms based authentication. External users must use Custom SAML authentication. See How to set up login providers for more information.

Regular user: Create a regular user if you are not integrated with Active Directory or do not want this account to be tied in with your Active Directory (e.g. external access for contractors). A regular user requires that a forms authentication route be available. Additionally, you should use Regular users if you wish to use the additional features available for that account type such as: password recovery, invitation via email, Bulk import users from Excel template, and two-factor authentication.

Active Directory user: Create an Active Directory user to utilize the AD integration and the automatic user creation features of ThoughtFarmer. If not using AD sync features you can still use an AD user so that ThoughtFarmer login access is the same as the user's network login access.

External user: Create an external user when you want a user to be able to use third-party credentials (eg. from Azure or Okta) to log in to the intranet.