[V4.0] User Manual: Administration

Adding Users

People can generally view your site without logging in - these are called guests. But you can grant some people special privileges by making them users. Like most secure web applications, each user has a username and password.

You create a user through the Admin menu, option Users. The user screen looks like:

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Click Add User to see the new user form:

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What are the restrictions on a username and password? Fill in the users username, email address and password. In addition, you should assign the user to groups by clicking the checkboxes below. You set up your own groups, which we describe below. Finally click on Save, and you the user can start using your site.

Adding Groups

All users belong to one or more groups, which determine the things they are allowed to do. There are two kinds of groups:

• Public Groups determine rights for viewing sections of the site.
• CMS Groups determine rights for adding, editing, publishing and deleting pages in the site

A BrowserCMS site is preloaded with the following groups:

• Guest (Public Group) - is a generic public group. Unlike all other groups, you cannot add users to this group. Any sections you hide in the Guest group are hidden to un-logged-in users.
• CMS Administrators (CMS Group) can administer the site (add users, etc.) and edit all sections
• Content Editors (CMS Group) can edit all sections of the site and publish content

Definitely you'll want to add users for all the content editors and publishers of your site and add them to the Content Editors group. In addition, you may want to add more users to the CMS Administrators group (which is better than using the generic cmsadmin user).

You can also create your own groups. From the Admin menu, choose Groups.

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Then click Add Group.

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Give the group a descriptive name, then choose the group type - either Restricted Public User to create a public group or CMS User to create a CMS group.

For a public group, you'll see the sections of the site:

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A checkmark means the users in the group can view this section. No checkmark means they can't.

For a CMS group, you'll see a list of CMS rights:

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• If Administer CMS is checked, users in this group get the Admin menu in BrowserCMS, and can do anything in this menu like add users or groups.
• If Edit Content is checked, users in this group can add or edit pages in the sections checked below.
• If Publish Content is checked, users in this group can publish or archive pages in the sections checked below.

Click Save to finish.

You add can then add users to this group. Choose Users from the Admin menu, choose the user, and you will see your new group listed:

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Click the checkbox to put the user in this new group.

Setting up Restricted Sections

A restricted section is a section that only some users can see. Guests (ones that have not logged in) will not see this section in any menu items. And if they try to get to it through a direct URL or a bookmark, they'll be given an error message.

1. Create usernames, as in ___ above, for everyone allowed to access this restricted section
2. Create a group, as in ___ above. We'll call ours "Gold Members". Put all the usernames in the group.
3. Create a section in the Pages Site Map, as described in ____. We'll call ours "Gold Member Only Section".
4. Click the Edit button on the section. The editing screen for sections looks like the one you use to add a section. SCREEN SHOT.
5. Click OFF the checkbox next to the Guest group.
6. Click ON the checkbox next to your new group Gold Members.

It’s a common task to want to restrict specific users from being able to see certain pages. This might include creating a ‘members’ section, where only registered and approved users can see the content. BrowserCMS allows editors/admins to restrict user access based on sections. Individual pages get their security from their immediate parent. For example, if there is a section called ‘Member Only’, which a ‘Guest’ cannot see, all pages in that section will be block, and guests (unregistered users) that try to access those URLs will be sent to the ‘Access Denied’ page.

Creating the groups

The first step to secure a section is to set up the groups who are allowed to see it. An administrator can create a new group by clicking the ‘Administration’ tab, then selecting the ‘Groups’ item from the left menu. Click the ‘Add Group’ button, give the group a name (‘Members’), and choose ‘Registered Public User’ as the group type. By default, this group will able to view all sections within the site. After saving the group, you can alter which sections a user can see, by clicking the name of the group. In this case, the new ‘Member’ group’s permissions are fine.

Adding users

The next step is to create a user in the ‘Member’ group. On the ‘Administration’ tab, click the ‘Users’ menu item on the left menu, and click ‘Add User’ on the toolbar. Fill in the basic user information (name, username, email and password) and check the newly added ‘Members’ group (but no others)

Restricting the sections

The next step is to add the new section, which will be restricted so that only users who are in the ‘Member’ group can see them. Go to the sitemap, select the ‘My Site’ (which is the root of the site) and click ‘Add Section’. Name the section ‘Members Only’, and then uncheck all public permissions except for ‘Member’. Next add a page to this section and publish it.

Now, when users who aren’t logged in (Guests) try to visit any pages in the ‘Members Only’ section, they will be redirected to the Accessed Denied page.

Setting up Workflow

When the number of contributors to a website grows, it may be necessary to restrict who has rights to publish content. This would allow for multiple editors to contribute and edit content, but content would be passed to one or more `publishers’ in order to commit the changes publicly. Workflow in BrowserCMS has several concepts which make it work: * Rights – Who can edit and who can publish? * Tasking – Who the work is assigned to? * Notification – How do people know they have new content to look at.

This section covers how to create a simple workflow, that covers two kinds of groups of people. * Contributors: These people should be able to edit pages and content, but should not be able to publish them. * Publishers: These people should be able to edit pages/content, and can publish them.

Basic Contributor and Editor workflow

The first step is to create two new groups, both of which should be of type CMS User’. One should be called ‘Contributor’, and should only have the Edit Content’ permission. The second group should be called Publisher’, and should have Edit Content’ and `Publish Content’ permissions. Next create two users, and assign one of them to each group.

The user in the Contributor group, will be able to make changes to pages and blocks, but will not be able to publish it themselves. When they are done with a page, on the ‘Edit Page’ view, they can use the ‘Assign’ button to pass the page to somebody who has publishing rights. Assigning a page provides a drop down with all users who have ‘Edit Content’ permissions. The contributor can choose the assign to the ‘Publisher’, give it a due date and a comment, and then assign the page. This will notify the ‘Publisher’ via email they have a new task assigned to them, along with the URL to the page.

The ‘Publisher’ can then log in, find the page they want to review, make sure the changes are acceptable, then publish the page. Once they are down with their task, they can click the ‘Complete Task’ button to close the task out. In addition, editors and publishers can always find what open tasks they have by going to the ‘My Dashboard’.