Managing users

This page is for administrators, and for editors who look after the accounts of the site's members. It covers the daily work with accounts: adding a user or a group, changing an account, moving it to another group, and disabling, enabling and unlocking it. All of it happens in the Users tab, where accounts and groups are items like any other.

Who can do this

• Administrators may do everything, in every group.
• Editors have the role Member management: they may create, change, move, disable and remove accounts inside Members, but not the accounts of administrators or other editors. They may also ask for a new editor's account in Editors, which waits until an administrator approves it.

Add a user

1. Click Users in the header and open the group the person belongs in, for example Editors or Members. The group decides what the person may do.
2. Under Sub items, press Create new and choose User.
3. Fill in the first and last name, and under the user account the Username, the Email, the Password and Confirm password.
4. When you create the account for someone else, give it a temporary password and leave Change password at next sign-in ticked: the person then chooses their own password at the first sign-in.
5. Press Send for publishing. If Verify it's you asks for your own password, enter it and press Confirm.

Give the person the username, and the temporary password by a second channel, such as a phone call. Open the new account's Roles tab to check what it received from its group.

To add a group, choose User group under Create new, give it a name and publish it. A new group has no role yet; assign one, see Roles and policies.

Change an account

Open the user and press Edit. You can change the name, the e-mail address and the password, and tick Change password at next sign-in. Publish with Send for publishing. The username cannot be changed in the form.

Move a user to another group, or put them in two

• Move: open the user, press Move, choose the new group and press Select. The user now has the roles of the new group instead of the old one.
• A second group: open the user's Locations tab, press Add locations and choose the second group. The user has the roles of both groups.

Rights add up: every role of every group above every location of the account counts.

Disable, enable and unlock an account

A disabled account cannot sign in, but keeps its content and history. Disable an account rather than removing it when someone leaves.

1. Open the user and click Configure user account settings.
2. Untick Enable user account to disable it, or tick it to enable it again. Maximum concurrent logins limits how many sessions the account may have at once; 0 means no limit.
3. Press OK.

A locked account had too many failed sign-ins. This happens only when the site sets a maximum number of failed sign-ins; the shipped settings never lock. On a site that does, the same settings page shows the number of failed attempts with a Reset button that unlocks the account.

Many accounts at once: Check user accounts

Users > Check user accounts (under Access control in the left column) lists every account with its state and last visit. The buttons at the top filter for Never signed in, Not seen for 180 days, Disabled, Locked and more; Find an account searches by name, login or e-mail address and by group. Tick accounts to disable, enable or unlock them together, or export the list. Anonymous, the administrator account and your own account are never changed there.

Remove an account

Open the user, press Remove and confirm. Items with a user account cannot be sent to the trash: the account is removed for good. Before that, look at the Relations tab to see whether content refers to the person, and when in doubt disable the account instead.

What can go wrong

• "The username already exists" or "A user with this email already exists". Each username exists once, and with the shipped settings each e-mail address belongs to one account only.
• The new user cannot do anything. The group has no role, or no role allows signing in to that part of the site (user/login).
• A change of rights does not show. Rights are kept per user and are read again at the next sign-in.
• A disabled user is still signed in. The session ends at its next request; to end it at once, use Setup > Sessions.
• An editor's attempt is refused. Editors may not change the accounts of administrators or of other editors, nor move a member into Editors. That is intended.

Every change to an account, and every refused attempt, is recorded in the User audit log. User accounts hold personal data: collect only what the person's work needs, and disable or remove the accounts of people who left.

Read more

• How do I add a user or a user group?
• How do I disable or unlock a user account?
• How do I move a user to another group, or put them in two groups?
• Setting up accounts for editors and administrators