Separate applications may use groups to track an individual’s role, or to determine which users are authorized to access a resource. Since groups are managed separately in each application, keeping the membership roster consistent across these services becomes very difficult. If a member leaves a project, for example, the group’s email list, wiki space, calendar, research database and other shared resources need to be updated separately. Grouper™ solves this dilemma by creating a centralized location for managing groups, and by its ability to define a group once and use that group across multiple applications. Institutions and organizations can set up groups, roles, and permissions for many purposes, such as populating and administering standing committees, ad hoc research teams, departments, or classes. 
Consulting for Grouper
Several open source technologies come together to create a secure IT infrastructure. Web single sign-on technology is needed to protect sensitive information. Federated Web single sign-on is needed to help institutions share resources and collaborate in a privacy-preserving manner, across or within organizational boundaries. Group management is needed to control authorization decisions by setting roles and permissions for groups, determining which groups have access to what resources/ applications. Group management also enables collaboration between group members and various groups.
Unicon offers consulting services for adopting the Grouper groups’ management toolkit. Unicon's Services Team supplies the expert guidance, execution, and development necessary to meet the specific needs of the institution or organization, maximizing the results in adopting Grouper.
Evaluation
Whether an institution or organization is in the process of implementing, updating, or maintaining Grouper, assessing and evaluating options can impact the success of the application. Unicon understands the importance of documenting goals, needs, and wants, and offers an evaluation service to institutions and organizations.
The evaluation service is a first-step for providing a snap-shot of where the institution or organization is or to help clarify a need for Grouper. An evaluation session can determine and prioritize the conditions and needs required for a new implementation, update, or customization to an existing Grouper instance. Unicon’s evaluation service includes surveys, reporting, and analysis, all helping institutions and organizations decide their business needs. Unicon also provides best practices for evaluation based on functionality, finances, support/maintenance, performance, usability, and security.
Mentoring
Mentorship assists in knowledge transfer to grow clients’ expertise in Grouper-integrating applications and in developing for and maintaining a Grouper server. General Grouper mentorship affords institutions and organizations access to a Unicon developer/ consultant experienced in working with Grouper. Consultants are made available to assist and mentor staff.
Types of mentoring activities include: answering questions, helping staff execute on Grouper development, providing guidance on Grouper configuration tasks, performing research and producing documentation as requested up to the agreed amount of hours. Mentorship assists in knowledge transfer to grow an institution’s or organization’s staff expertise in the development of Grouper and for maintaining the Grouper instance.
