Managing User Self-Administration Groups

The User Self-Administration feature is organized in different groups that can be enabled and disabled independently. User self-administration groups contain the following elements:

•ID – A unique, short word used to identify a group.

•Description – Information used as menu item text and as page headers.

•Main Page – Information that identifies the file to which the user's main menu provides a link.

•Enabled status – Message that specifies whether the group is accessible to users.

Internet Express provides two groups as built-ins, Vacation Mail and Change User Password. In addition to these groups, you can add your own group. The following sections describe how to add and modify existing groups.

Adding Groups

You can add new groups to contain additional functionality for the User Self-Administration feature. Groups allow you to easily enable and disable parts of your configuration and create templates to wrap new functionality. Templates perform the following functions:

•Verify that the group is enabled.

•Verify that a user is logged in.

•Make sure that the login has not expired.

•Create a header if these conditions are met or display the customizable disabled message.

To add a group:

1.From the Manage Users menu, choose Manage User Self–Administration. The Manage User Self-Administration menu is displayed.

2.From the Manage User Self-Administration menu, choose Manage Groups. The Manage Groups form is displayed.

3.Enter a description in New Group Description field. Click on Add. The Add Group form is displayed (Figure 19), allowing you to specify group attributes.

4.On the Add Group form, enter a unique ID in ID field. The ID should be a short, one-word value.

5.Optionally, revise the description you entered in Step 3.

6.Enter the pathname and file name for the main page of this group. The path should be relative to the User Self-Administration home directory. For example, if the file is located at $selfadmin_home/data/foo.php, set the value to data/foo.php.

7.Click on the Create Template check box if you would like a template created for the main page. Use the template file as the basis for all files you create in this group. Existing templates are not overwritten.

8.Click on the Enabled checkbox to enable the group. When a group created with the User Self-Administration feature is disabled, users cannot access the pages and the link is not available from the main menu.

9.Click on Submit. A status message is displayed when the group is created. Figure 19 shows the Add Group form completed for a new group, System Mail.

Managing the User Self-Administration Feature 61