When you create an OpenEdge database using the PROCOPY or the PRODB command, for ABL you have unrestricted access to the database. All users are security administrators until you designate users (at least two are recommended) as security administrators.
For SQL, your OS login ID is used to automatically designate you as a SQL DBA, but only if there are no predefined _User table records or DBAs (other than "sysprogress") in the source database. Once you create SQL users in the _User table, you must use the GRANT statement to give at least one of these users the DBA privileges in order to access SQL as a DBA.
Then:
For ABL, you should use the database administration tools to designate an (preferably, more than one) ABL Security Administrator user ID and use it to grant access privileges.
For SQL, you must as your first task create an SQL DBA account as the first user account. Use the GRANT statement to designate additional SQL DBAs, and use the CREATE USER and DROP USER statements to add and delete user IDs.
Note: The database tables are fully usable and manageable from ABL and SQL. ABL provides full interoperability for the tables it can access.
For ABL, you should use the database administration tools to designate an (preferably, more than one) ABL Security Administrator user ID and use it to grant access privileges.