Basic Administration > Managing User Participation > Participant Administration > Understanding Participants (Users, Groups, and Organizations) > Best Practices for Assigning Domains to Participants
  
Best Practices for Assigning Domains to Participants
A domain is an administrative area that defines a set of administrative policies, such as access control, indexing, and notification. Objects associated with a domain are subject to its policies. When participant objects are created, they are associated with default domains as follows:
• Users who are affiliated with an organization (the organization attribute on their directory service entries is set) are associated with the domain that was created for the organization when the organization object was created. This domain usually has the same name as the organization (or a shortened version of the organization name) and the domain is a child of the site context User domain. If the organization is associated with an organization context, then the domain is in the organization context; otherwise, the domain is in the site context.
• Users who are not affiliated with an organization (the organization attribute on their directory service entries is not set) are associated with the site context Unaffiliated domain. This domain is a child of the User domain. One exception to this rule is the Administrator user, which is associated with site context System domain.
• User personal cabinets are associated with the same domain as the user. The one exception to this rule is that the personal cabinet for the Administrator user is associated with the User domain in the site context.
• User-defined groups created in the site context are associated with the site context Unaffiliated domain. This domain is a child of the User domain.
• User-defined groups created in an organization context are associated with the domain that was created for the organization when the organization object was created. This domain usually has the same name as the organization (or a shortened version of the organization name) and the domain is a child of the site context User domain. The domain is in the organization context.
• Organizations are associated with the domain that was created for the organization when the organization object was created. This domain usually has the same name as the organization (or a shortened version of the organization name) and the domain is a child of the site context User domain. If the organization is associated with an organization context, then the domain is in the organization context; otherwise, the domain is in the site context.
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The default domain associations described in the previous list only apply if you have not set up JNDI adapters that configure participant domain assignments. The domain assignments in a JNDI adapter take precedence over the system defaults.
User objects and personal cabinets are created automatically when users are selected in a search or when users log in. These user objects and personal cabinets are always associated with the default domains described earlier. When you create a user through the Participant Administration utility, you can select the domains. But in most cases, you should use the defaults (which are used when you do not select a domain).
When creating group objects through the Participant Administration utility, using the default domain is usually a good choice. However, you may want to choose a different domain if you want policy rules from a domain other than the default to apply to the group object.
When creating organization objects through the Participant Administration utility, using the default domain is usually a good choice. However, you may want to choose a different domain if you want policy rules from a domain other than the default to apply to the organization object. This may be the case if you want to allow users to select the owning organization when they create parts and documents. For more information on turning on the organization ownership feature, see Owning Organization Participants.