Kavi Members is responsible for managing company and user data for all Kavi applications. It manages types assigned to classify companies and users, and manages user authentication and access.

In Kavi Members, every user must belong to a company so users can be managed effectively as a group. In a company-based organization, most users are representatives of Member Companies, but some of these "Companies" may be academic institutions, government agencies or nonprofits.

In an individual-based organization, most users are individuals who represent their own interests in the organization. Even if the organization doesn't collect company affiliations for thse users, it must assign them to companies, so on these organization's websites, companies that don't exist as real world entities are added to the database solely to group users. This is explained in greater detail in the Concepts document Purpose.

Figure 2.1. Users and Companies