Application Groups 
An application group is a named set of system users and system groups with certain reporting and/or administrative permissions. All standard users in the application group share the same functionality and access to the context. The strategy management administrator shares the same functionality and access with some exceptions. For information, see Administrative Roles and Permissions.
For example, a Services application group might contain users who perform administrative services and access administrative areas of the Administrator. An Executives application group might contain users who view the scorecard and strategy and add comments in the application.
Use application groups to control each user's experience in the Administrator and the application in terms of permissions, views, and accessibility.
Application groups are used in the Administrator in this ways:
Application groups are created with a list of users and their accessibility and permissions.
Application groups are assigned to contexts. This allows users to access the context in the application.
In the application, application group users with the appropriate permissions can do the following with application groups:
When creating a report in the Reports component, they can specify which application groups can see the report.
When creating a dashboard in the Dashboard component, they can specify which application groups can see the dashboard.
When creating a comment, they can specify which application groups can see the comment.
When creating an initiative, they can specify which application groups can see the initiative. For example, if the Marketing group has Create/Edit Initiatives permission, a user in the Marketing group can create an initiative and allow any application group to see the initiative.
The user can choose from all defined groups, even ones that the user is not a member of. Users always have access to the item they created.
Structure
An application group is composed of the following:
An identifying name.
A selection of users and system groups who are part of this application group.
You can assign the same user to more than one group for the same context. If this is the case, the user gains a superset of all of the user's group permissions when using that context. For information, see Example of User Permissions Across Multiple Contexts. You can add up to 1,000 users to an application group.
Access to certain tabs in the application.
Reporting permissions, which provide access to certain functions in the application.
This includes the ability to create initiatives, create comments and replies, save reports and dashboards to public sets, and use advanced reporting settings. When something is not available, the related controls become either hidden or unavailable in the application for the users in the group. For example, if an application group is not given the Create Initiatives permission, the users in that group do not see the Add Initiative link in the Initiatives component.
Administrative permissions for the users in this group.
Administrative permissions provide access to certain functions in the Administrator. This includes the ability to create objectives, goal diagrams, contexts, and scorecards. When something is not available, the related controls become either hidden or unavailable in the application.
A context assignment.
Someone with Create/Edit Contexts permission assigns application groups to contexts. For information, see Application Group Assignments.