Patent ID: 7978354

Claim:
A restriction information generation apparatus configured to generate access restriction information to be transmitted from a client terminal to a printing apparatus to determine whether to permit/inhibit execution of a function based on the access restriction information containing functional restriction information of the printing apparatus, the restriction information generation apparatus comprising at least a processor and memory, functioning as: an acquisition unit, adapted to acquire, from a restriction information management server, first functional restriction information directly assigned to a user specified by user information received from a requesting client terminal, and second functional restriction information indirectly assigned to the user; a merge unit, adapted to merge the first and second functional restriction information acquired by said acquisition unit to generate access restriction information; and a transmission unit, adapted to transmit the access restriction information generated by said merge unit to the client terminal, wherein the functional restriction information of the printing apparatus is used for determining whether or not an application providing at least a browser function and send function is available and whether or not execution of a print job is executable in accordance with print settings containing a color setting and a page layout setting, wherein the functional restriction information is directly assigned to a user by selectively associating any of a plurality of roles to the user, which contains a standard role as default of the system and an extended role defined by a user, wherein the functional restriction information is indirectly assigned to a user by selectively associating any of the plurality of roles to his/her group, and wherein said merge unit merges the directly assigned functional restriction information and the indirectly assigned functional restriction information by associating roles to generate access restriction information.