Smart Tip of the Month: How do I create a "junior admin" user?

As a system admin, you may want to create a "junior admin"--a user who can access and manage sites in the CLE but who does not have access to the Sakai Administration workspace. Keep in mind that you'll still need access to the Admin workspace to create a junior admin.

Warning: A junior admin may manage ANY site within your instance of Sakai. If you plan on creating "junior admin" roles for students working at your help desk, you MUST make sure they are not able to manage their own courses! We highly recommend providing student workers with separate "junior admin" user IDs that are different from their regular user IDs, to safeguard against this possibility. 

The first step is creating a project site--give it an appropriate name, such as "Junior Admin." When creating the site, you only need to add the Home and Site Editor tools. Be sure to copy the site ID, so you can quickly find the site in the Admin workspace. To do so, simply copy all of the site's URL to the right of the last backslash. The site ID will look similar to this:

b92587ec-56fb-46e5-860d-e7d6830399f6

Go to the Admin workspace and select the Sites tool. Find the Junior Admin site you just created, using the Site ID search if necessary by pasting in the site ID you copied. When you find the site, click on its link. You must now add two admin tools to the site manually--the User Membership tool and the Site Stats Admin tool. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Scroll down to "Add/edit pages" and click the Pages button.
2. In the toolbar, click New Page and enter "User Membership" in the "Title" field.
3. Under "Continue Editing," click Tools.
4. In the toolbar, click New Tools.
5. Select the User Membership tool and click Save.
6. Repeat this process to add the Site Stats Admin tool.

Next, select the Realms tool. Find the realm for the Junior Admin site you created, again pasting the site ID in the search field if necessary. When you find the site, click on its link. Then, in the "Role ID" list, click the Participant link, and grant permission to the following functions:

• sitestats.view
• sitestats.admin.view
• usermembership.view

When you're finished, click Save. Complete the same steps for the Organizer role in the realm.

Now find and select the "!site.helper" realm. In the toolbar, click Add Role, and in the "Role ID" field, enter an appropriate name, such as "junioradmin." Then, grant permission to the following functions:

• annc--ALL
• asn--EXCEPT "asn.receive.notifications" and "asn.submit"
• assessment--EXCEPT "assessment.submitAssessmentForGrade" and "assessment.takeAssessment"
• blogwow--ALL
• calendar--ALL
• chat--ALL
• content--ALL
• dropbox--ONLY "dropbox.maintain"
• eval--EXCEPT "eval.be.evaluated" and "eval.take.evaluation"
• gradebook--EXCEPT "gradebook.viewOwnGrades"
• jforum--EXCEPT "jforum.admin"
• mail--ALL
• mailtool--ALL
• melete--ALL
• metaobj--EXCEPT "metaobj.suggest.global.publish"
• mneme--EXCEPT "mneme.guest" and "mneme.submit"
• osp--EXCEPT all "osp.style" functions
• poll--EXCEPT "poll.vote"
• realm--ONLY "realm.upd"
• roster--EXCEPT "roster.viewhidden"
• rwiki--EXCEPT "rwiki.superadmin"
• section.role--ONLY "section.role.instructor"
• site--EXCEPT "site.add.usersite" and "site.visit.unp"
• sitestats--ALL
• usermembership.view
• virtual_classroom_session--ALL

When you're finished, click Save. 

Next, select the "!site.helper" realm again and follow these steps:

1. Click Grant Ability in the toolbar.
2. In the User ID field, enter the user ID for the person you want promoted to junior admin.
3. Select "junioradmin" as the person's role in the "!site.helper" realm.
4. Click Save.
5. Repeat this process to add all junior admins to the "!site.helper" realm.

Finally, go to your Junior Admin project site. Using the Site Editor tool, add the junior admin users as participants.



As always, be sure to check your work. Log in as a junior admin user. Then, confirm that you can view  statistics for each site type, and that you can use the User Membership tool to help a user troubleshoot a site in which you are not a participant.


rSmart would like to thank the CLEW team at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, for their contributions to this Smart Tip.

This and hundreds of other tips can be found in the RSN knowledge base.