Incremental Authorization

This is a Beta feature

Introduction

During signup, Potens.io asks for the most basic scope, bigquery.readonly, to perform actions within the applications. Some actions may need additional permissions and when initiated a prompt requesting to grant them is presented. This flow is known as incremental authorization.

Incremental authorization is the requesting of permissions when needed. Starting from the most basic permission and increasing in scope as more actions are used.

Two components, Incremental Authorization and Unlock Features, are used in Potens.io.

Incremental Authorization component is encountered whenever an action that requires additional scope is needed and the user currently does not have that scope. The user is presented with a description of what is needed and a choice of scopes to select.

Unlock Features component is available on demand any time by clicking on the Unlock Features link. In Magnus, the link is available from the homepage. In Goliath, the link is available in Settings. The component displays all the scopes used within Potens.io. Each scope contains help/tooltip that lists the features each scope unlocks. The user can select from the scopes which ones they would like to grant.

An example of Incremental Authorization component can be found in Magnus when adding an FTP-GS task. The task requires additional permission beyond bigquery.readonly. If the user does not have the needed permissions, they will encounter the Incremental Authorization component.

The sections of the Incremental Authorization component include

Summary displays what methods are being used to perform the action.
List of Scopes includes scopes which are needed to perform the action. One selection from each list is required.
Usage Details contains a list of each method along with the scopes associated with them.
Additional Options and Information displays the billing project and what scopes are currently granted permissions.

Summary

The presentation of summary is dependent on whether or not the action requires a single method or multiple methods.

In the case of a single method, the method will be identified.

In the case of multiple methods, each method will be listed.

List of Scopes

The list of scopes identifies those scopes which are common among the methods. They are grouped by increasing order of greater breadth of permissions. For example, a readonly scope will display first in the list and has lesser permissions than a full_control scope that appears later in the list.

For a single method, the list of scopes are all scopes associated with the method.

For multiple methods, the list of scopes are those scopes in common across the methods. For example, the image below shows three methods that all share the three scopes listed. Choosing at least one of the scopes qualifies permissions for all three methods. These lists are provided for convenience. As an alternative, the Usage Section displays detailed lists of scopes for each method and you can pick scopes individually from each method.

In some cases, multiple methods may not always have scopes in common. Multiple lists will display and a selection from each list is required.

Usage Details

When multiple methods are required, Usage Details section is displayed. It shows each method along with their related scopes. Choose a scope for each method to grant permissions for the action. As an alternative, selections can be made from the lists in the Summary section.

Additional Options and Information

Two sections make up this area

Default billing project
Scope you have granted previously

Default billing project

For trial users, a drop down will appear for projects the user has access to. Select from the list to set the project as default.

For organization users, the default project is displayed. The default is set by the user’s administrator.

Scopes you have granted previously

This list comprises of all the scopes the user has previously granted. In addition to the scopes used by Potens.io, all granted scopes are listed. For example, other scopes may be granted when using API Task. Those scopes would be listed here.

How to grant additional scopes

When an action requires additional permission the Incremental Authorization panel will display. Review the methods used by the action and the scopes being requested.

From the summary section select one scope from each section.
Click OK
Google Sign In will prompt to accept the selections
Sign into Google to approve permissions

Incremental Authorization will close, and the action will proceed.

Unlock Features

Unlock Features is a component that lists all of the scopes used within Potens.io. The scopes are accompanied with a tooltip that shows what features they unlock. Users can access Unlock Features at any time and unlock features when needed.

In Magnus, Unlock Features can be accessed from a link on the home page.

In Goliath, Unlock Features can be accessed from a link in Settings.

Unlock Features consists of two sections

Usage Details
Billing Project and more Details