Setting permissions individually for each user of a database can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. For most databases, permission management based on groups, rather than on individual user IDs, is a much more efficient approach.

Each user ID can be a member of multiple groups, and they inherit all permissions from each of the groups.

For example, you may create groups for different departments in a company database (sales, marketing, and so on) and assign these groups permissions. Each salesperson becomes a member of the sales group, and automatically gains access to the appropriate areas of the database.