Administrative roles that govern access to administrative functions

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions for distributing administration functions of an access control computer system, the one or more sequences of one or more instructions including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• storing information that defines one or more administrative roles, in which each of the administrative roles includes one or more administrative privileges that authorizes one or more administrative functions;
• storing information that associates one or more of the administrative roles with at least one user of the access control computer;
• receiving from the user a request to execute one of the administrative functions;
• and
• executing the one of the administrative functions only when the user is associated with one of the administrative roles that includes an administrative privilege authorizing said administrative function.

In a computer system that controls access by networked users of the system to one or more World Wide Web applications, a method of enabling multiple administrators at different locations to carry out administrative functions of the computer system, the method comprising the computer implemented steps of:

• storing information that defines one or more administrative roles, in which each of the administrative roles defines a successively more limited set of administrative privileges, in which each set of administrative privileges authorizes one or more administrative functions;
• storing information that associates one or more of the administrative roles with at least one of the administrators;
• receiving from one of the administrators a request to execute a particular one of the administrative functions;
• and
• executing the one of the administrative functions only when the administrator is associated with one of the administrative roles that includes an administrative privilege authorizing the administrative function.

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions for enabling multiple administrators at different locations to carry out administrative functions for a computer system that controls access by networked users of the computer system to one or more World Wide Web applications, the one or more sequences of one or more instructions including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• storing information that defines one or more adminstrative roles, in which each of the administrative roles defines a successively more limited set of administrative privileges, in which each set of administrative privileges authorizes one or more administrative functions;
• storing information that associates one or more of the administrative roles with at least one of the administrators;
• receiving from one of the administrators a request to execute a particular one of the administrative functions;
• and
• executing the one of the administrative functions only when the administrator is associated with one of the administrative roles that includes an administrative privilege authorizing the administrative function.