How to Use This Guide
SURF Research Access Management is used by different user groups (researchers, administrators, application providers) to achieve complimentary goals.
This guide helps you find the information relevant to your role and goal.
| If you are a... | Start with... |
|---|---|
| Researcher wanting to use applications through SRAM | Identity Management (signing in, managing your profile) and Collaboration Management (joining collaborations, using applications) |
| Collaboration admin managing a research group | Collaboration Management (invitations, groups, connecting applications, governance) |
| Organisation admin or manager overseeing SRAM at your institution | Collaboration Management (units, labels, approval workflows, acceptable use policies, task delegation) |
| Service provider connecting an application to SRAM | Service Integration (integration methods, access policies, provisioning, tokens) |
Identity Management
How users authenticate and how their identities are managed across the platform
For Administrators
For Service Providers
Collaboration Management
How research teams are formed, governed, and given access to the applications they need
For End Users
- Joining a collaboration (invitations & join requests)
- Membership lifecycle (expiry, renewal)
- Acceptable Use Policies (application, organisation)
- Request a collaboration
For Collaboration Administrators
- Creating & configuring collaborations
- Member management (invite, bulk invite, join requests, roles)
- Group management & auto-provisioning
- Connecting applications to collaborations
- Expiration of collaborations and collaboration memberships
- Audit logs & activity tracking
For Organisation Administrators, Organisation Managers, and Unit Managers
- Organisation setup & governance
- Units: scoped delegation of management
- Labels: organising & filtering collaborations
- Labels vs. units: when to use which
- Organisation Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs)
- API access
Service Integration
How applications connect to SRAM and receive the identity and authorisation information they need
For Service Providers
- Connection methods overview (OIDC, SAML, SCIM, LDAP, PAM, tokens)
- LDAP integration deep dive
- Application groups
- Access control policies (allow-all, restricted, auto-connect, non-member access)
- Token-based & API access (service tokens, user tokens, API keys)
- CLI/SSH access patterns
- Specific application how-tos
For Developers / API Consumers
Corner Cases & Special Scenarios
- What happens when a membership expires?
- What happens when a collaboration expires?
- What happens when a user becomes orphaned?
- What happens when a user is suspended?
- Non-member access to applications
Overview
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