User Manager - DISCUS Administration Instructions

User Manager

DISCUS Administration Instructions

The User Manager allows moderators to give posting privileges to non-moderators through the creation of "user accounts." Moderators are given privileges to add and remove user accounts as well as to edit the user accounts (by changing the profile or the password without knowledge of the user's current password).

To access the User Manager, click on "User Manager" from the administration program main menu. Then select a group in which you wish to add, remove, or edit users. Note that you can only add, remove, or edit users in those groups to which you belong.

Deleting users

To delete a user, click on the delete icon (

) next to the user you wish to delete. You may also use the check boxes in the "Mark" column to select the users you wish to delete, and then click on the "Delete Marked" icon. You must click on "OK" to confirm the deletion of a user.

Note that to remove a user completely from the discussion board system, the user must be deleted from all groups to which the user belongs. You must therefore manually remove the user from each group separately.

Editing users

As a moderator, you can set a user's full name, e-mail address, e-mail notification option, and password. You can also disallow the user from editing his or her own profile.

To edit a user, click on the edit icon () next to the user you wish to edit. To change a user's profile, edit the "E-mail Address," "Full Name," and/or "E-mail Notification" settings. To set whether the user can edit his or her own profile, select "No" or "Yes" from the "Can edit profile" option. To save the changes you made, click on "Save Changes."

To change a user's password, type the new password into the "Enter New Password" text entry box and retype it into the "Verify" text entry box. Then click on "Verify New Password." You cannot determine a user's password, however, because these are stored in encrypted form.

Special permissions

Moderators are permitted to set up special posting permissions which will apply to all topics in the group in which the special permissions are set. Special permissions allow the configuration of public groups, groups where all users may post (regardless of the group to which the user belongs), groups where all moderators may post (regardless of the group to which the moderator belongs), or groups where posting is disabled to everyone except moderators in the group. Note that regardless of the special permissions set, only the moderators belonging to the group will have administrative privileges - special permissions set only posting privileges.

To set up special permissions, access the "Special Permissions" portion of a group in the User Manager. To set any special permission, check the box next to the special permission you wish to set and then click on "Save this Configuration." Details of each special permission follow.

Disabled: Only moderators within the group may post messages. This special permission setting overrides all user accounts and all other special permissions. This is a way to disable posting in a group while maintenance is being performed, for example.

Moderators from other groups: Allows moderators in any group to have posting permissions to topics in the group in which you set the "Moderators" special permission. This does not give administrative privileges to those moderators; however, it allows them to post messages.

Public: Allows anyone at all to have posting permissions. This allows someone to enter anything at all for the "username" and anything (or nothing at all) for the "password" and be able to post a message. When you set this special permission, the "Add a Message" form on each page in appropriate topics is changed to give instructions for public posting. This setting is often appropriate for one or more topics on the discussion board.

Users from other groups: Allows users in any group to have posting permissions to topics in the group in which you set the "Users" special permission.

Important: By default, all users in the group will be able to post, as will all moderators within the group. You do not need to check the "Users from other groups" box to allow users from the actual group to post! Rather, checking "Users from other groups" will allow everyone on the board with a user account to post.

Profile permissions

Moderators are permitted to enable user profile functions by group. This allows the moderator to allow anonymous posting, e-mail notification, and full name and e-mail stamping in topics in the group for which the profile permissions are set up. By default, all of these permissions are enabled, i.e., all of these features are allowed.

To set up profile permissions, access the "Profile Permissions" portion of a group in the User Manager. To set any profile permission, check the box next to the profile permission you wish to set and then click on "Save this Configuration." Details of each profile permission follow.

Anonymous: Users and moderators may post as "Anonymous." (Even if the messages are posted anonymously, the moderators can determine who posted the message using the Page Manager.) If anonymous posting is disabled and the user or moderator posting the message selects the "Post message as 'Anonymous'" option, their identity is still displayed on their post (and they are warned of this on the preview screen).

E-mail Notification: Users and moderators receive e-mail notification of posts in topics in the group if the users and moderators have selected e-mail notification within their profile settings. By default, e-mail notification is not sent to the users or moderators unless these users or moderators have enabled e-mail notification within their profile settings. Disabling the option at this level overrides any of the settings in the user or moderator profiles.

Full Name & E-mail: The full name and e-mail address of the poster are displayed on the post (where the full name and e-mail have been set in a profile). If the full name is not the same as the username, the username is displayed in parentheses after the full name so that the profile function cannot be abused by users or moderators who specify someone else's name as their "full name." Disabling this option at this level overrides any of the settings in the user or moderator profiles.

Adding Users

There are two ways to add user accounts to this discussion board. The first is to add one user account at a time. The second is to add many user accounts at a time by pasting a tab-delimited username/password list; this is useful for adding students in a class to a list.

Adding one user

Under "Add a User" enter the new user's (future) username into the "Username" text entry box. Enter the user's (future) password into the "Password" text entry box and retype the password into the "Verify Password" text entry box. Click on "Add this User."

Adding many users

The program allows moderators to paste a delimited (tab delimited, comma delimited, or semicolon delimited) list of users into a text box to add the users automatically. The program can parse this list for usernames, passwords, full names, and e-mail addresses. The program also has tools for manipulating the list input and extracting data.

Your delimited list needs to contain at least one field -- username, password, full name, or e-mail address. This delimited list can come from a text page, a spreadsheet, or a database. To transfer the delimited list from the source program, highlight the desired data range in the source program, select the source program's Copy command, switch to your browser, click in the text box under "Add a User List,", and select your browser's Paste command. Note that your source program, upon copying, must create a tab delimited, comma delimited, or semicolon delimited list. If this is not the case, you could paste the source program data into a spreadsheet, and then copy from the spreadsheet to the browser.

Once the list of users has been pasted in the box (or entered manually), click the "Add these Users" button to bring up the preview screen.

At the top of the preview screen is the list you entered, parsed by the program. The program makes its best guess as to what each field represents. You will likely need to adjust the program's guesses, especially to recognize which columns represent usernames and passwords. This is done by selecting the appropriate options from the menu boxes at the top of each column.

The program offers a number of options for manipulating the input:

Generate Usernames: If your list did not contain usernames, you can generate usernames either from the full names (in which case the last name will be used as the username) or from e-mail addresses (in which case the username from the e-mail address will be used as the username). To use this option, none of the columns at the top may be designated as the "username" column, and one column at the top must be designated either as the full name column or the e-mail address column, respectively.
Generate Passwords: If your list did not contain passwords, you can generate passwords either from full names (in which case the last name will be used as the password), from usernames (in which case the username will also be used as the password), or by giving everyone the same password. To use this option, none of the columns at the top may be designated as the "password" column, and unless you are giving everyone the same password, one column at the top must be designated either as the full name or the username column, respectively.
Manipulate E-mail Addresses: This allows you to append text to each e-mail address. For example, if your e-mail addresses did not contain "@yourdomain.com" you could add this text to each e-mail address.

To submit the user list with no changes, click the "Accept List and Add Accounts" button. To revise the user list and refresh the preview, click the "Refresh Preview" button.

Once you have chosen to accept the list and add the user accounts, the program will perform checks to verify that all of your new user accounts are valid. If there are errors, you will be told what the errors are and you can then fix the errors on the preview form. When all users have been added, you will be returned to the normal User Manager screen.