User Account Management

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User Account Management

Overview

DeviceExpert deals with the sensitive configuration files of devices and in a multi-member work environment, it becomes necessary to restrict access to sensitive information. Fine-grained access restrictions are critical for the secure usage of the product. DeviceExpert provides role-based access control to achieve this.

DeviceExpert comes with three pre-defined access levels:

Access Level (Role)	Definition
Administrator	With all privileges to access, edit and push configuration of all devices. Only administrator can add devices to the inventory, add users, assign roles and assign devices. In addition, administrator can approve or reject requests pertaining to configuration upload (pushing configuration) by operators.
Power User	With privileges to access, edit and push configuration of specified devices. Can approve or reject requests pertaining to configuration upload (pushing configuration) by operators.
Operator	With privileges to access and edit configuration of specified devices. Can send requests for configuration upload (pushing configuration) to Administrators/Power Users.

This section explains how to create users and assign roles for them.

User Management

User Management Operations such as adding new users and assigning them roles, editing the existing users and deleting the user could be performed only by the Administrators. Other three types of users do not have this privilege.

Administrators can create as many users as required and define appropriate roles for the user. From the Admin >> User Management tab, administrators can

view all the existing users
create new users
change the access level, device list of existing users
delete an existing user

To view the existing list of users

click "Admin" tab
go to "User Management" in the "Administration" tab on the left-hand side of the UI
the list of users will be displayed with respective login names, access levels and email IDs

Note: The default login name and password for fresh DeviceExpert installation is 'admin' and 'admin' respectively. The default email ID has been configured as admin@adventnet.com. After logging in to the DeviceExpert, change the email ID for admin user. Otherwise, when you invoke 'forgot password' email would be sent to admin@adventnet.com.

Adding New Users

To Add New Users

click "Admin" tab
go to "User Management" in the "Administration" tab on the left-hand side of the UI
in the UI that opens, click the "Add User"
enter the desired login name; this name will be used to log in to the DeviceExpert web interface
enter "password"; the password should be at least 5 characters long
confirm the new password
provide the user's email ID. This email ID will be used in the 'Forgot Password' feature to intimate the password to the user when the user invokes 'Forgot Password'. While invoking 'Forgot Password' link in the login UI of DeviceExpert, the users will have to provide the username and the email ID. DeviceExpert will reset the password of the user and it would be mailed to the user's ID
define the "Access Level" (role) for the new user - Administrator/Power User/Operator; Users falling under "Administrator" category shall have unlimited privilege and access over all functionalities of DeviceExpert. On the other hand, the users falling under other three categories will have very restricted access.
for roles other than 'Administrator', you need to assign the list of devices to be managed by the user. Select the desired devices and assign them to the user (When you create a user with access level as 'Administrator', assigning devices will not arise as administrators have privilege to access all devices)
click "Add"
new user account has been created
notification on account creation (with login information) would be sent to the user

To Edit existing Users

click "Admin" tab
go to "User Management" in the "Administration" tab on the left-hand side of the UI
in the UI that opens, click the edit icon present against the respective username
change the Email-id, access level and device list of the user as desired
click "Update"

To Delete existing Users

click "Admin" tab
go to "User Management" in the "Administration" tab on the left-hand side of the UI
in the UI that opens, click the delete icon present against the respective username
the user will be removed from DeviceExpert once and for all

Privileges for Configuration and other Operations

The following table explains the privileges associated with each access level for performing various device configuration operations:

Access Level	Configuration & Other Operations
Access Level	Upload (Pushing configuration into the device)	Device Addition	Scheduled Upload	Result Handler based Upload	Authority for approving various requests	User Management
Administrator
Power User	(only for authorized devices)		(only for authorized devices)	(only for authorized devices)
Operator	(only for authorized devices, subject to approval by administrator / Power User)		(only for authorized devices, subject to approval by administrator / Power User)	(only for authorized devices, subject to approval by administrator / Power User)

Approving Requests

Only Administrators have the absolute privilege to perform all configuration operations. Other users in the hierarchy have restricted privileges.

Any operation that involves pushing configuration into the device (upload) requires the approval of Administrators/Power Users. When operators perform any such upload operation, a request is filed for approval by Administrators and Power Users. Email notification regarding the request is also sent to the Administrators and Power Users. The request would be evaluated by the Administrators/Power Users and they have the privilege to approve or reject the request. If the request is approved, the upload operation requested by the user gets executed.

To approve/reject a request,

go to "Home (or) Admin" tab
go to "Approval Requests" on the left-hand side of the UI
click "Pending requests"
list of all requests pending for approval are listed. Details such as the type of request, name of the user who made the request and requested time are all listed
upon clicking a request, all details pertaining to that particular request are listed
you can view the proposed configuration change
click "Approve" or "Reject" after providing your comment for the decision

[Operators can view the status of their request by following the above procedure].

Note:

When Administrators approve a upload that is scheduled to be executed at periodic intervals, the following will be the behaviour:

Once approved, the upload schedule will not be sent for re-approval during the subsequent executions. For example, consider that a schedule has been created by an operator to upload configuration at a periodic interval of one hour. In this case, the schedule would be submitted for approval only once. If the administrator approves it, it will get executed every hour. From the second schedule onwards, it will not be sent for approval each time. The same applies to uploads based on Result Handler. However, when the operator modifies the schedule/Result Handler, it will be sent again for approval.

In case, the Administrator/Power User rejects a upload request based on a Schedule/Result Handler, the respective request would be deleted from the database.

Next Section covers ....

Editing Account Settings