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User Guide / User Management
1. User management - overview
The following picture shows the first screen after clicking on the tab "User Management":
On the top of the site, you see the name of the current zone. Here it is the "MUM Zone" which is the default zone after the installation. After adding another zone, you can switch between the zones by clicking on the arrow link right next to the zone's name. The name of the default zone 'MUM' can be changed very easily.
The user management deals with the following four components which are described in this chapter:
The user management uses the Java library 'Talos' for the authorisation handling. The terms 'Categories' and 'Objects' which are used in this chapter are explained in the Talos documentation.
2. Zone administration
By default the user management supports the concept of zones. After the installation the user management provides one zone: the default zone which is called 'MUM'. But you can add new zones whenever it is needed very easily.
2.1. What is a zone?
Here some basic rules of the zone concept for a better understanding:
- 'MUM', the default zone, is the home zone of the administrator
- It is possible to create new zones, but each new zone is a member of the default zone.
- New zones are helpul to maintain several domains with separate design and completey different content
- A zone acts always as a container to the groups, users and the related permissions inside the zone
- Each object or category inside a new zone is related to its own zone and cannot be seen from other new created zones, apart from the default zone 'MUM'.
- When a new zone is created, the system creates automatically all new needed categories in Talos related to the new zone
For more information take a look at the description of the security concept based on Talos.
For zone administration, you get different controls:
- Create new zone
- List all zones
- Edit a selected zone
- Delete zones from the list, attention: you only can delete zones without any content, only then the icon for 'delete' appears in the list
2.2. Edit a zone
It is possible to set configuration parameters for each zone. This is useful, in case each zone should get a specific layout and a unique domain. The parameters on this screen are not used in the admin part of the CMS, but probably essential for the view part of the website. As you can see, you can choose a specifiy layout, domain name, Google parameters and player configurations for each zone.
3. User administration
The second row of controls on the start screen deals with the user administration:
- Show user: search a user by his username
- Create a new user: create a new user
- List all users: list all users
3.1. Create a new user
To create a new user, you only have to define the user’s login data: a name and a password. The need of register other user attributes, as birthday date, phone number or address, depends on the requirements of a concrete project and will be realised individually. After saving the new data, you can click to view and edit the new entry.
3.2. User - quick search
If you search for a certain user, just insert the characters of the name you are looking for into the search field and an auto-complete list will show up to help you.
3.3. Edit a user
After selecting a user you can do several things with the user data: change the user profile, change the password or select the groups to which the user shall belong. If you have permissions to create users, you will see the tab 'Create user'. The checkboxes for 'Recent users', 'Shortcuts', etc ... , are connected to the dashboard and control the visibility of the dashboard boxes related to each user.
3.4. List all users
The list of all defined users shows the user’s name in an alphabetical way and can be sorted in the opposite direction by clicking the arrow link next to the label "User name".
In this screen it is also shown how a user can be deleted from the system: just 'collect' the trash cans in each line from the user using the 'control' or 'shift' key on the keyboard. After selecting just click on 'Delete' located on top of the list. Attention: The user 'webadm' in this particular case has no trash can, because it is the 'super user' of the system and cannot be deleted.
With click on the 'edit'-icon you are able to edit and change the user data.
4. Group administration
The group controls on the start screen of the MUM differ hardly from the user controls:
- Show group: search a group by its name
- Create a new group: create a new group
- Manage group hierarchy: access and edit the group tree structure
4.1. Create a new group
You create a group in the same way as you create a new user or a new category. After saving the new data, you can click to view the new entry and edit it.
4.2. Group - quick search
To search for a certain group, just give its name into the search field and an auto-complete list will show up to help you.
4.3. Edit a group
Now you can edit and delete the selected group, create a new group, choose members, which shall belong to this group or manage the group hierarchy of the current zone. Jump through the tabs and discover the features by yourself, it is quite simple. This particular screen shows how to add new users to the selected group.
4.4. Manage group hierarchy
As the category administration, we also tried to leave the group administration as simple as possible to manage and to extend. That’s why we use the same Drag and Drop mechanism.
Moreover the forbidden elements are also greyed out when a group is dragged and a menu with a link to the group’s management page appears as well when the user hovers on a group.
5. Permission administration
Not every user should be allowed to do anything with the content or the data stored in a CMS. So it’s very important for the administrator to grant authorizations and permissions flexibly and individually to zones, groups and users.
Some basic authorisation rules:
- You can grant permissions to zones, groups and users
- A user inherits the permissions from the zones and the groups where he is a member
- All users, who are member of a group are automatically members of the parent groups of this group. Therefore it is enough to grant permissions to the root group of the tree branch if all users of this particular part of the tree should have the same permissions
For more information take a look at the description of the security concept based on Talos.
For setting the authorisation you get the following controls:
- Manage permission group: Create and maintain a group of 'single permissions'
- Manage authorization: grant permissions to zones, groups and users
5.1. Manage permission group
The first step an administrator will probaby do is to create specific 'permission groups' to make his life easier. A 'permission group' is exactly what the name is telling us: a group of 'single permissions'. A 'single permission' is for instance: 'Create user', 'Upload video', 'Publish an article' and so on ... With the combination of certain 'single permissions' to a 'group permission' it is easier to set and maintain the permissions for users/groups/zones later. You will find the control 'Manage permission group' on the main page of the 'User management' in the sector 'Permissions'.
Search for existing 'permission groups' or add a new 'permission group' in the left box. Select a 'permission group' and mark the 'single permissions' in the right box. The 'single permissions' are organized according to the main features of the CMS. You can add for instance all permissions of 'Article HTML' to the chosen 'permission group' by clicking the checkbox 'Article HTML' and a green checkmark appears. If you would like to specify specific permissions of an article, click on 'Article HTML' in the right box and the article section opens and shows: 'Create Article HTML', 'Delete Article HTML', ... , all checkboxes are checked with a green checkmark. Feel free to check or uncheck the permissions to your specific needs and save the new 'permission group'.
In this particular screen the 'permission group' called 'editor' is connected to all 'single permissions' of 'Authorization' (green checkmark) and to a selection of 'single permissions' of 'Groups' (yellow checkmark).
5.2. Manage authorization
After you created some 'permission groups' of your needs it is time to grant the permissions to zones, groups and users. Click on 'manage authorization' in the sector 'Permissions'.
Attention: The CMS release 2.2 only provides 'Categories' but no 'Objects'. In practise it means, you only can grant permissions to a specific type or article, for instance 'article type HTML', but not on each article itself. This is perfectly fine for a standard CMS, if you need to set specific permissions on a single article, you need to extend Tiny Marbles by using Talos and 'Secure Objects'.
First select a Category from the left box. In the box in the middle you select the zone, group or users. You can combine all three in the list, if all needs to get the same permissions. And now on the right box you can either choose one of the permission groups you already created (tab 'Group') or you set all single permission manually (tab 'Single'). I think now you can see why 'permission groups' are very convenient to work with! But of course you can 'override' the permission group by selecting additional single permissions. In this case the 'permission group' and the additional selected 'single permissions' are working as a combination.
In the two screens below you can see how to grant permissions on the category 'Article HTML' for the two users 'Markus' and 'brueggemann' and the group 'editor'.
6. Companies
6.1. Create a new company
6.1. Create a new company
Tiny Marbles is prepared to manage companies. Right now, the release CMS 2.2 only suppports the 'create company' and 'list company' feature, without further connections to the other entities. But it is planned in the future to connect the advertisement area with the companies, and the company management is helpful you would like to extend Tiny Marbles with business transactions.
6.2. List all companies
The list of all companies shows the companies in an alphabetic order. There are two filters available on the top: active/inactive companies and 'my companies/all companies'. When a company will be deleted, the company appears in the list of inactive companies, where a company can be activated again. To modify a company simply click on the 'Edit' icon in the list.
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