Before you create a default access policy, decide how much data a typical program or user in your organization needs to access. The default policy should be broad enough to allow most users in your organization to access the data they need without frequently adjusting their access policies.

You can configure the default access policy to apply to all segmentation groups. If you want to change the default access policy for a specific segmentation group, you can override the default policy with a policy that applies to a specific segmentation group.

For example, you can configure the default policy to allow two years of data access for all segmentation groups. You can then create a default policy for the accounts receivable segmentation group that allows access to one year of data. When you create the second policy, Data Archive gives it a higher sequence number so that it overrides the first. Each time you create an access policy, Data Archive assigns a higher sequence number. A Data Archive administrator can change the sequence number of any policy except the default policy. The default policy sequence must be number one.

When a user or program queries the database, Data Archive starts with the default access policy and successively checks each access policy with a higher sequence number. Data Archive applies the policy with the highest sequence number unless you configure an access policy to override other policies or exempt a user or program from all access policies.