Membership Users and Groups

Membership users have limited privileges to Ektron. Unlike regular Ektron users, they cannot use the Workarea. When membership users log in, they can view, add and edit content from the Web site (as permitted)—all other functionality is disabled.

Membership users can be allowed to view private content. This is helpful if your organization has partners who need access to Web pages that should not be visible to the general public. See Also: Making Content Private If you have a Social Network or Community Web site, a membership user can create an online area for themselves.

Membership user privileges

Membership User Privileges

A typical membership scenario is a Partners section of your Web site that contains private content for partners only. Set up a membership user group with users from your partner’s organization. The group is given add and edit permissions to the Partners section. Membership privileges are:

  • Create, edit, and view content after log in.
  • Subscribe to receive Web Alerts. See Also: Administering Web Alerts
  • View private content.
  • Use these Community features See Also: Managing User Communities
    • Share Document Workspace and Photo Gallery with other site visitors
    • Join a community group
    • Mark content the member likes and allow site visitors to see the list of these Favorites
    • Designate other members or site users as Colleagues
    • Keep a Journal
    • Add and read Message Board comments
    • Send and receive messages with other registered users
    • If a Discussion Board requires sign in, they can view and post to them. See Also: Working with Discussion Boards
  • Post blog comments. See Also: Working with Blogs
  • If a poll or survey is set up to track participating users, membership users’ names appear on the Form reports.
Viewing membership users

Viewing Membership Users

Use the Membership Module folder to add and edit membership users and user groups.

  1. Navigate to the Workarea > Settings > Community Management > Memberships.
  2. From that folder, you can access the following screens.
    • Users—You can sort the Username, Last Name, and First Name columns by clicking the column headers.
    • Users not Verified—If you are using the Web Alert feature, any site visitor can sign up to be a membership user. How Users Sign up for Subscriptions
    • User Groups—Membership Groups

NOTE: The ek_PageSize setting in the web.config file determines the maximum number of users that can appear on a page before it “breaks.” When a page breaks, additional entries appear on another screen, and the following text appears near the bottom of the list:
Page 1 of 2 [First Page] [Previous Page] [Next Page] [Last Page]

Adding membership users

Adding Membership Users

  1. From the Workarea, click Settings > Community Management > Memberships > Users.
  2. Click Add Membership User. The Add Membership User screen appears.
  3. Complete the form using the following list as a reference.
    —Field descriptions—
    • Username—Enter a unique username for the membership user.
    • First Name—Enter the first name of the user.
    • Last Name—Enter the last name of the user.
    • Display Name—The name used to identify a Membership user on the Web site. This can be different from the Username, which is the name you use to log into the Ektron Web site.

      IMPORTANT: This name needs to be unique inside Ektron and it cannot be blank.

    • Password—Enter a password for the user.
    • Confirm Pwd—Re-type the password to confirm it is correct.
    • User Language—Select the language in which the user viewsEktron screens and messages. The language also determines the default value whenever a drop-down list of languages appears within Ektron. The drop-down list of choices at this field is derived from the Language Settings screen, available from the Settings > Configuration folder. Do not confuse the system language with the user’s ability to create and edit foreign editions of content. This field does not prevent a user from working with multiple language content. See Also: Working with Multi-Language Content. If the selected language is not English, French or German, it is only supported after you download the Ektron Language Support Program from Ektron and translate the Web site.
    • Email Address—Enter an email address for the user.
    • Forum Editor—Determines which editor is used when this user replies to a Discussion Board. See Also: Using Discussion Boards on Your Web Site
    • Avatar—Click on "Click to upload your Avatar" and choose an image file that you want to associate with your profile. By default, the maximum file size of an avatar is 200 kilobytes. Also, the avatar's height and width cannot exceed 125 pixels preserving the aspect ratio.
      —Show me how to change this—

      Changing the Default File Size

      To change the file size limit, edit Siteroot\Workarea\Upload.aspx.vb. In this file, change the line below to the maximum file size you want to allow. 

      If (numFileSize > 200) Then

      For example, to allow 500 kb files, change 200 to 500.

      NOTE: Remember, this number is in kilobytes.

      Changing the Default Height and Width

      To change the default height and width, edit YourSite\App_Code\VBCode\Utilities.vb. In this file, change the following lines to the size you wish to allow.

      Dim Width As Integer = 125
      Dim Height As Integer = 125

      For example, to set avatars' height and width to 166 pixels, change 125 to 166 in both lines.

    • Address—The address used to find your location when a user is performing a search based on location.
    • Latitude—The latitude used to find your location when a user is performing a search based on location. Google maps provides a service that takes the address of user and returns its latitude and longitude. You don’t need to use Google’s automatic retrieval of latitude and longitude. Instead, you can enter the values manually.
    • Longitude—The longitude used to find your location when a user is performing a search based on location. Google maps provides a service that takes the address of content and returns its latitude and longitude. You don’t need to use Google’s automatic retrieval of latitude and longitude. Instead, you can enter the values manually.

    User Groups Tab (Tab only appears when editing)—Lists user groups to which the user belongs. See Also: Assigning Users to User Groups

    Activities Tab (Tabs only appear when editing)

    NOTE: If you disable Notifications, the Activities tab (which lets the user pick Notifications to receive and send) disappears.

    • Colleagues Sub Tab—Select the notifications you want to receive when a colleague performs an activity, and the agent that transmits the notification. For example, if you want to receive email notifications when a colleague posts a blog message, you would place a check mark in the box for Blog Post in the email column. See Also: Notifications
    • Community Groups Sub Tab—Select notifications you want to receive when a member of a community group performs an activity relating to the group, and the agent that transmits the notification. For example, you want to receive email notifications when a community group member posts a blog message to group’s blog. To enable this, place a check mark in the box for Group Blog Post in the email column. See Also: Notifications

      This tab sets preferences for all community groups.
      For Developers: Ektron has created a UserGroupPreferences user control. If you add the control to a community group’s profile page, users can specify notification preferences for individual groups. This control comes with Ektron and is located in:

      [Drive:]\webroot\siteroot\Workarea\Notifications\Controls

      In this site, when a logged-in member of a community group accesses his group’s profile page, there is an Edit Group Notifications Preferences link. Clicking this link opens the user control. When the user selects his preferences, they are stored for that group only.

    • My Activities Sub Tab—Select notifications you want publish when performing various activities on the Web site. For example, if you want to publish notifications when you post a blog message to your blog, place a check mark in the box for Blog Post in the Publish column. See Also: Notifications

    Profile Links Tab—Lists The user's alias if community aliasing is set for users. See Also: Community URL Aliasing

  4. Click Save.
Deleting membership users

Deleting Membership Users

  1. From the Workarea, click Settings > Community Management > Memberships > Users.
  2. Check the boxes next to the users you want to delete.
  3. Click Delete (). A confirmation message appears.
  4. Click OK.
Searching for membership users

Searching for Membership Users

If there are many membership users, use the search to find users who meet your criteria. For example, find members whose username includes @example.com. Only users with those characters in that sequence in their username, first name, or last name appear. The search is case-insensitive, so MI produces the same results as mi.

You can also search by First and Last name.

Troubleshooting problems with membership users and groups

Troubleshooting Problems with Membership Users and Groups

If you get the following error:

Response object error 'ASP 0251 : 80004005'
Response Buffer Limit Exceeded

Increase the limit as follows:

  1. Stop IIS.
  2. Locate the file %WinDir%\System32\Inetsrv\Metabase.xml
  3. Modify the AspBufferingLimit value. The default value is 4194304, which is about 4 MB. Changing it to 20MB (20971520).
  4. Restart IIS.
Membership Groups

Membership Groups

You can use a membership group to group similar membership users, reducing the effort required to assign identical permissions to many users.

IMPORTANT: Membership Groups and Community Groups are different concepts. Community Groups allow users with similar interest to join together in a social networking environment. See Managing Community Groups. Membership User Groups are explained below.

To make friendly URLs that are easy to use and remember for a community user and group, Ektron provides a Community URL Aliasing feature. Community URL Aliasing for more information.

NOTE: Membership users may also be managed with Active Directory and LDAP. For more information, see Authenticating Membership Users with AD or LDAP.

Viewing users in a membership group

Viewing Users in a Membership Group

  1. From the Workarea, click Settings > Community Management > Memberships > User Groups.
  2. Click the membership user group you want to view. The View Users In Group screen appears.
Adding a membership group

Adding a Membership Group

  1. From the Workarea, click Settings > Community Management > Memberships > User Groups.
  2. Click Add Membership Usergroup. The Add a New User Group screen appears.
  3. Enter a unique name for the group, and optionally add a description.
  4. Click Save.
Deleting a membership group

Deleting a Membership Group

  1. From the Workarea, click Settings > Community Management > Memberships > User Groups.
  2. Select the group you want to delete. The View user in Group screen appears.
  3. Click Delete (). A confirmation message appears.
  4. Click OK.
Adding users to a membership group

Adding Users to a Membership Group

NOTE: Only membership users can be added to membership user groups.

  1. From the Workarea, click Settings > Community Management > Memberships > User Groups.
  2. Click Add Membership User. The Add User to Group screen appears.

    NOTE: Only membership users who do not already belong to the group appear.

  3. Click the user you want to add.
  4. Click Save. A confirmation message appears.
Deleting users from a membership group

Deleting Users from a Membership Group

  1. From the Workarea, click Settings > Community Management > Memberships > User Groups.
  2. Click the name of the membership user you want to remove. The View Users screen appears.
  3. Check the boxes next to the users you want to delete.
  4. Click Delete (). A confirmation message appears.
  5. Click OK.
Assigning membership permissions

Assigning Membership Permissions

After you create membership users and groups, you can assign them permissions for Community folders only. See Also: Community Folders

  1. Access the permissions table for the content or folder to which you want to assign membership permissions.
  2. If necessary, break the inheritance for the content or folder. See Also: Inheriting Permissions
  3. If desired, set the folder or item to Private. See Also: Making Content Private
  4. Click View MemberShip Users on the right side of the permissions table. The membership users/user groups added to the permissions table appear.

  5. Click Add. The Add Permissions screen appears.
  6. Click a username or user group name to add to the permissions table. The Add Permissions Options screen appears.
  7. Check appropriate permissions for the membership user or group.
  8. Click Save.
Membership server control

Membership Server Control

The Membership server control has a tabbed form that allows a site visitor to create or update his profile. The control also can present new membership users with terms and conditions for using Discussion Boards when needed.

You can specify the following information on the Membership server control tabs:

General tab

Fields with a red asterisk (*) are required fields.

  • First name—Enter your first name.
  • Last Name—Enter your last name.
  • Password—Enter a password.
  • Confirm Password—Re-enter the same password.
  • E-Mail Address—Enter your email address. Notification email is sent to this address unless the Disable E-mail Notification field is checked. Also, this address identifies the user sending Instant email. See Also: Automatic email Notification
  • Display Name—Enter the name you want to display to others, which can be a nickname or title.
  • User Language—Select from available languages.
  • Address—Enter the address (or just the zip code) of where you are located.
  • Latitude—This field is automatically determined by the address.
  • Longitude—This field is automatically determined by the address.
  • Avatar—Click Click to upload your Avatar and choose an image file that you want to associate with your profile. By default, the maximum file size of an avatar is 200 kilobytes. Also, the avatar's height and width cannot exceed 125 pixels preserving the aspect ratio.
    Change the avatar.

    Changing the Default File Size

    To change the file size limit, edit Siteroot\Workarea\Upload.aspx.vb. In this file, change the line below to the maximum file size you want to allow. 

    If (numFileSize > 200) Then

    For example, to allow 500 kb files, change 200 to 500.

    NOTE: Remember, this number is in kilobytes.

    Changing the Default Height and Width

    To change the default height and width, edit YourSite\App_Code\VBCode\Utilities.vb. In this file, change the following lines to the size you wish to allow.

    Dim Width As Integer = 125
    Dim Height As Integer = 125

    For example, to set avatar's height and width to 166 pixels, change 125 to 166 in both lines.

Forum tab

  • Content and Forum Editor—Choose eWebEdit400 or eWebEditPro.
  • Topics per Page—Select the number of topics you want to display on a page. If the number of available topics exceeds the number you select, a scroll bar lets you see the additional topics. For example, if you select 10, and there are 25 topics, you can scroll to see all the topic, but only 10 will be displayed at one time.
  • Forum Signature—Click Edit to enter or modify an automatic signature that appears at the bottom of each post you make to a forum topic.
Tag tab

  • Tags—Keywords that you can assign to content and library items, which allows for tag-based searching. For example, you can add the tag EAC (Employee Activity Committee), and tag users related to the EAC. In this way, you can search for the users to which the EAC tag is applied. A tag cannot exceed 25 characters, and can include only alphabetical or numeric characters, a hyphen, or an underscore.
Custom tab

Fields with a red asterisk (*) are required fields.

  • Moderate—Check the Moderate box to give this user privileges on a message board to approve and delete posts. Regular users in a group message board can create and delete only their own posts.
  • Features—Check the Features box to give the user an individual calendar. (There may be other features to grant, also.)
  • Private Profile—Choose from one of the following options:
    • Public—The user information is accessible by others on the eIntranet.
    • Private—The user information is not accessible by others on the eIntranet.
    • Colleagues—The user information is accessible only by people on the eIntranet that are connected as colleagues.
  • Title—Enter the title of the user.
  • Department—Select the department to which this user belongs. The list contains any departments that you have created.
  • Extension—Enter the user's telephone extension.
  • Phone—Enter the user's company telephone number.
  • Cell—Enter the user's cell phone number.
  • Desk—Enter the value that identifies the location of the desk (or cubicle, or office), if your office identifies such things. This can be valuable in locating an employee on an office map.
  • Reports to:—Enter the name of the person to whom the user reports. This can be valuable for developing organizational charts.
  • Time Zone—Select the time zone where the user works.
Activities tab

By default, all activity is checked to display in the Activity Stream widget. By checking the boxes, you can select criteria for the types of content you want to see when colleagues or community groups create the content. You can also select (publish) the types of content that you want colleagues to see under the My Activities category.

  • SMS—A checked box indicates that the type of content will be sent to your cell phone Short Message Service (SMS).
  • Activity Stream—A checked box indicates that the type of content will be displayed in the Activity Stream widget on the eIntranet pages.
  • Email—A checked box indicates that the type of content will be sent to your Email address, which is specified in the General tab of your profile.
Category tab

The Category tab lets you select from a list of taxonomy categories with which you want to be associated. You determine which taxonomy appears on the tab by setting the TaxonomyID property.

WARNING! The Category tab appears only when an ID is assigned to the TaxonomyID property.

Membership server control properties

Membership Server Control Properties

The following are Ektron-specific server control properties. You can find information about native .NET properties such as font, height, width and border style in Visual Studio® help.

  • AllowAvatarUpload (String)

    When set to Active, Click to upload your avatar appears on the General tab. This allows site visitors to upload an avatar when registering for the site. When set to Disable, the link is hidden. To force site visitors to choose from a gallery of avatars, enter a path to the template containing them. The predefined gallery appears in a pop-up window. To adjust this window's properties, edit the siteroot\workarea\java\membershiptabs.js file.

  • Authenticated (String)

    Indicates if you are logged into the CMS Explorer and can use it to browse to content, collections, and so on. See Also: Browsing Your Ektron Site Using CMS Explorer.

  • BoardID (Long)

    The ID of the Discussion Board for which to show the Terms and Conditions. If you don’t know the ID, click Ellipses, then sign in, browse to and select the Discussion Board.

  • DisplayMode (Mode)

    Lets a developer decide what type of membership form is added to the Web form. The following describes possible settings.

    • User Registration—Lets a site visitor register as a membership user. This mode also allows membership users to update their information and preferences when logged in.
    • Reset Password—Lets membership user reset his password.
    • Unsubscribe Secured—Lets membership user unsubscribe by entering his username and password.
    • Unsubscribe Unsecured—Lets membership user unsubscribe by entering his username.
    • Account Activate—Let a site visitor activate his membership by entering the ID number sent in the account verification email.
  • DoInitFill (Boolean)

    By default, Fill occurs during the Page_Init event. Set to false if you want to postpone the fill-action until later. In this case, Fill is automatically called during the Page Render event. You might do this if you need to set or change a property on the control in code-behind and have it render with your changes shown.

  • DynamicParameter

    To make this control dynamic, select id. When you do, this server control is attached to the user passed as a URL parameter.

  • EnableCaptcha (Boolean)

    Use to add Captcha interface for more security. It looks like this.

    • True—Show Captcha
    • False—Hide Captcha

    If this property is set to true, Captcha appears while the control is in User Registration, Account Activate, or Reset Password mode. See http://www.captcha.net for more information about Captcha.

  • Hide (Boolean)

    Hides or displays the output of the control in design time and run time.

    • True—Hide the control output.
    • False—Display the control output.
  • Language (Integer)

    Set a language for the server control. This property shows results in design-time (in Visual Studio) and at run-time (in a browser).

  • RedirectFailedURL (String)

    The URL to which a membership user is sent if the registration fails.

    • If the page resides in the same folder as the registration page, enter the page name. For example, RegFailed.aspx.
    • If the redirect page is located in a subfolder, add its path. For example, members\RegFailed.aspx.
  • RedirectSucessURL (String)

    The URL to which a membership user is sent when the registration succeeds.

    • If the page resides in the same folder as the registration page, enter the page name. For example, RegSucceed.aspx.
    • If the redirect page is located in a subfolder, add its path. For example, members\RegSucceed.aspx.
  • RegisterButtonImg (String)

    Lets you add an image in place of the text on the register button. Enter a path to the image. For example:

    http://www.example.com/buttons/registerbutton.gif

    If the image is located in the site root, do not enter the full path—only enter the subfolder path and image name. For example: /buttons/registerbutton.gif

  • RegisterButtonText (String)

    Text that appears on the Register button. The default is Register. If you use a register button image, you do not see this text.

  • ResetButtonImg (String)

    Lets you add an image in place of the text on the reset button. Enter a path to the image. For example:

    http://www.example.com/buttons/resetbutton.gif

    If the image is located in the site root, you do not need to enter the full path. Only enter the subfolder path and image name. For example: /buttons/resetbutton.gif

  • ResetButtonText (String)

    Text that appears on the reset button. The default is Reset. If you use a reset button image, you do not see this text.

  • SaveButtonImg (String)

    Lets you add an image in place of the text on the save button. Enter a path to the image. For example:

    http://www.example.com/buttons/savebutton.gif

    If the image is located in the site root, you do not need to enter the full path. Only enter the subfolder path and image name. For example: /buttons/savebutton.gif

  • SaveButtonText (String)

    Text that appears on the save button. The default is Save. If you use a save button image, you do not see this text.

  • ShowExtended (String)

    Decide if the Custom User Properties Tab is available when using this control. The default setting is True.

    • True—Show Custom User Properties tab.
    • False—Hide Custom User Properties tab. For more information, see Custom User Properties.
  • ShowTerms (Boolean)

    Terms and Conditions are defined for the Discussion Forum specified in the Membership server control's BoardID property. If you set the ShowTerms property to True, the Terms and Conditions for the forum identified in the control's BoardID property appear near the bottom of the Membership Server Control. A membership user must check the box to complete his registration.

    If Terms and Conditions are defined for the specified Discussion Board and ShowTerms property is set to False, you must accept the Terms and Conditions the first time you create a post or a reply.

  • SuppressWrapperTags (Boolean)

    Suppresses the output of the span/div tags around the control.

    • True—Suppress wrap tags.
    • False (default)—Allow wrap tags.
  • TaxonomyID (Long)

    The ID of a taxonomy available to users. A user editing or creating a profile can select which categories from this taxonomy to associate with their profiles.

  • UserExistsMessage (String)

    The message that appears when a membership user already exists. The default message is: Username(email) already exists!

  • UserSuccessMessage (String)

    The message that appears when a membership user successfully registers. The default message is: You have registered successfully. You can also use this property to set the message that appears when users successfully unsubscribe or reset their password. To do this, enter the success message in this property and set the DisplayMode property to the proper usage.

  • UserUpdateSuccessMessage (String)

    The message that appears when a membership user successfully updates their information. The default message is: You have successfully updated your information.

  • WrapTag (String)

    Lets a developer specify a server control’s tag.

    • Span (default)—designate an inline portion of an HTML document as a span element.
    • Div—apply attributes to a block of code.
    • Custom—Lets you use a custom tag.