Citizen development is a process in which non-technical individuals, often referred to as "citizen developers," can build and deploy custom applications without the need for extensive programming knowledge. This empowers organizations to quickly create solutions to meet specific business needs, streamline processes, and improve efficiency.

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However, with the power to build and deploy apps comes the responsibility to ensure that user data is kept secure and only the necessary data is being accessed by authorized users. This is where user access controls are useful. User access controls are a crucial component of any application, and they are especially important in the context of citizen development. These controls allow citizen developers to specify which users or groups of users have access to certain features, and therefore data, within an app.

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In an AppSheet app, user access controls can be configured through the use of AppSheet slices and security filters. Appsheet slices allow you to specify which rows of data are visible to a particular user or group of users. Security filters, on the other hand, allow you to specify which rows of data are accessed by the app and therefore to a particular user or group of users. Slices occur on a user’s device, security filters occur server-side.

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Both appsheet slices and security filters apply to the data sources that are connected to an app, meaning that you can control which data is visible to each user based on their role or permissions. This is particularly useful for ensuring that medium or high sensitivity data is only accessible to the appropriate users.

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But why are user access controls so important? Here are a few key points to consider:

• User access controls help to ensure that only authorized users can access the app's features. This is crucial for maintaining the security of sensitive data and protecting against unauthorized access.
• User access controls are an important part of the approval process for deploying an app. IT administrators need to have confidence that the citizen developer understands how the user access controls work in order to approve the app for deployment.
• User access controls can help to improve efficiency by ensuring that users only see the data that is relevant to their role or responsibilities. This can reduce clutter and make it easier for users to find the information they need.
• User access controls can be easily documented within Teamapps, a platform designed to help organizations scale their citizen development efforts. By documenting the user access controls within Teamapps, organizations can ensure that they are consistently applied across all apps and maintain a clear record of who has access to what data.

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In conclusion, user access controls are an essential way to ensure that only authorized users can access the features and data within an app. By using tools like appsheet slices and security filters, organizations can easily configure user access controls within an Appsheet app and document these controls within Teamapps to help scale their citizen development efforts.