ABAC: Creating audience categories and audiences

Overview

With Audience Based Access Control (ABAC), audiences can now be built, categorized, and organized in ways that mirror real-world org structures. This flexibility enables highly targeted content, communications and access controls. 

In this article, we provide an overview on how you can create an audience category and link out to articles that provide step by step instructions on how to create audiences in a number of different ways.  

Who is this for: App managers, Audience managers

Jump to a section: 

• Step 1: Creating audience categories 
• Step 2: Creating audiences 
• Create sub-audience 
• Managing audiences

Audience definition and usage 

Audiences are customizable groups of users based on attributes like role, location, or specific individuals. They can then be used to manage who has access to specific features and content. 

➡️ App managers and Audience managers can create and manage audiences. 

Creating and updating audience categories 

ABAC introduces audience categorization into folders. Audience categories group similar audiences together, making it easy to find, sort, and manage audiences at scale. All audiences will live within a category. 

There are two types of audience categories: 

• Manually created categories: these are categories you create or name yourself 
• System generated categories: these categories are generated by the system and cannot be renamed (e.g. sites, segments) 

Create an audience category 

1. From the left-hand navigation, head to Application settings > Audiences.
2. Click the drop down arrow next to the Create button. 
3. Click Create category.
4. Name your category. 
5. Add a description. 
6. Click Add.

Your audience categories are alphabetized and will appear in your Manage Audiences screen. 

Updating audience categories 

To update an audience category name or description, you will follow these steps: 

1. Head to Application settings > Audiences.
2. Click on the three dots to the right of your audience category.
3. Click Edit category.
4. Update the name and/or description.
5. Click Save.

If you see a lock 🔒 icon next to your audience category, that means it's a system audience category, and you cannot edit the category. 

If you want to update a system audience category you’ve created using audience rules, check out the article about audience rules.  

Deleting audience categories

To delete an audience category, follow these steps: 

1. Head to Application settings > Audiences. 
2. Click on the three dots to the right of your audience category. 
3. Click Delete category > Delete. 

If you see a lock 🔒 icon next to your audience category, that means it's a system audience category, and you cannot delete it. 

A category can only be deleted if none of the audiences and sub-audiences under the category is being used in a feature or an access control group. This is to make sure that the audiences being used anywhere are not deleted accidentally. 

If a category is deleted, all the audiences under it are also deleted.

Creating audiences

ABAC expands Simpplr's audience creation capabilities and introduces new elements to support flexibility and customization. By default, app managers can configure audiences. 

There are four ways to create an audience. 

Click on the link below to see instructions on how to set up an audience based on each method: 

Create sub-audiences

You can create sub-audiences within your existing audiences. Sub-audiences let you create smaller, more targeted user groups under a main audience. This gives you greater flexibility when managing access to features or content that needs to reach only a subset of users.

For example, if you have an audience called Sales Team, you can now create sub-audiences like Sales  - North America or Sales - Enterprise Accounts.

Sub-audiences should be created if you want to:

• Manage complex audience structures more efficiently
• Control visibility at a more granular level
• Reuse audiences without recreating similar groups repeatedly

To create a sub-audience under a parent audience, you will follow these steps: 

1. Head to Application settings > Audiences.
2. Click on the three dots to the right of your audience.
3. Click Add sub-audience.
4. Provide the audience name and description.
5. Select the attributes and values.
6. Click Create.

Managing audiences

You can manage audiences and perform various actions, such as edit, delete, 

Edit audience

1. Head to Application settings > Audiences.
2. Click on the three dots to the right of your audience name.
3. Click Edit.
4. Update Name/Description/attributes etc.
5. Click Save.

If you see a lock 🔒 icon next to your audience, that means it's a system audience, and you cannot edit the audience. 

Move the audience to another category

To move an audience to another category, follow these steps:

1. Head to Application settings > Audiences.
2. Click on the three dots to the right of your audience name.
3. Click Edit.
4. Click on the edit icon under ‘Parent’ section.
5. Select a different category.
6. Click Save.

You'll find the audience under the new category now. There is no impact on the features where the audience is being used.

Delete audience

To delete an audience: 

1. Head to Application settings > Audiences.
2. Click on the three dots to the right of your audience.
3. Click Delete.

If you see a lock 🔒 icon next to your audience category, that means it's a system audience category and you cannot delete the category. 

An audience can only be deleted if the audience itself and none of the sub-audiences under the audience is being used in a feature or an access control group. This is to make sure that the audiences being used anywhere are not deleted accidentally. 

If an audience is deleted, all the sub-audiences under it are also deleted.

Audit history

You can track all the changes made on any audience by using the Audit history option.

To view the audit history on an audience:

1. Head to Application settings > Audiences.
2. Click on the three dots to the right of your audience.
3. Click View audit history.