Delegated Access Tool

Delegated Access and Shopping Period Tools

Index

About

The delegated access tool controls both delegating access to users outside of the site membership realm as well as setting up and controlling site shopping period information.  To make it easier to describe, I will break the description into two tools: “Delegated Access Tool” and “Shopping Period Tool”.

Delegated Access Tool:

The delegated access tool has five primary functionalities:  

  1. Provide a friendly interface for administrators to delegate user access to specific sites or department levels.

  2. Provide a friendly interface for administrators to delegate shopping period admin privileges for users at the site or departments level.

  3. Provide a friendly interface for delegated users to view, search and access their delegated sites.

  4. Provide a friendly interface for delegated shopping period admins to adjust shopping period data within their scope of privileges.

  5. Allow a user, who has been granted access to sites, to access the site using the direct URL for the site.

The delegated access tool allows administrators to search for users and delegate site, role, and shopping period admin access.  It also allows you to select specific tools the user should not have access to.

The easiest way to think of how the tool works is relating it to the Role Swap feature in Sakai. Instead of just swapping the role, you can specify the realm and role the user will receive for that particular site or node in the hierarchy.  All child nodes will inherit the parent settings unless overridden.

Shopping Period Tool:

The shopping period tool is just a special use case of the Delegated Access Tool from the perspective of a shopping consumer.  In another words, we treat the .anon or .auth role as a delegated user which we can determine what role they will inherit when they enter a site.  There are three user cases that the shopping period section handles:

User Case: Administrator:

When a user who has been granted shopping period administrative privileges goes into the delegated access tool, they will see a link for “Shopping Period Admin”.  Here they can modify what role a .anon or .auth (public/logged in) user will inherit when they enter.  They can also choose which tools are open as well as the open and close date for the shopping period for that site or department.

Use Case: Instructor:

If you enable the instructor to override shopping settings, then the instructor will have an interface in the "Site Info" tool under the link "Manage Access" where he/she can modify their course's shopping settings.  This allows an instructor to opt in or out of the shopping period.

User Case: Shopper:

When a user who wants to shop for a particular site goes to the Shopping Period tool, they will see a node structure and a search box to look for a particular site they want to test out.  This tool, for example, can be added to Sakai’s !Gateway site so unauthorized users can view it.  When the user finds the site they want, they just click the link and go to the site.

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Authorship and Licensing

The Delegated Access Tool was developed by the Longsight Group under contract with Columbia University. It is licensed under the Educational Community License, Version 2.0.

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Local Demo

  • Add the following to your JAVA_OPTS: "-Dsakai.demo=true"

  • Startup Sakai

  • Log in as admin and add Delegated Access to your My Workspace

    • You can use the "Sites" tool and add the tool manually. Just go to "Sites" and select your site. Then "Add/Edit Pages"->"New Page". Enter any title you want and click "Tools"->"New Tool". The select Delegated Access and click "Save" at the bottom.

    • Note: Non admins can add the tool by going to "Worksite Setup" in your My Workspace site then find your My Workspace site in the list and click the checkbox next to it.  Then you click "Edit" on the top.  This will bring you to the "Site Info" page where you can click "Edit Tools".  In this page, you check "Delegated Access" and click save to add this tool to your My Workspace site.

  • Go to the tool and search for yourself and others and set their permissions.

Live Demo

  • log into http://nightly2.sakaiproject.org:8082/portal

    • username: admin

    • pw: admin

  • Setup Delegated Access Demo:

    • If the Delegated Access tool isn't in the Administration Workspace, Add "Delegated Access" to your My Workspace.

      • Note: you have to do by going to "Worksite Setup" in your My Workspace site then find your My Workspace site in the list and click the checkbox next to it.  Then you click "Edit" on the top.  This will bring you to the "Site Info" page where you can click "Edit Tools".  In this page, you check "Delegated Access" and click save to add this tool to your My Workspace site.

    • Go to tool. 

      • To start you can see how it looks to have access delegated to you by clicking "Search Users" and searching for yourself ("admin"). This is where you can grant access to specific nodes in the hierarchy.  Checking the boxes will enable the permissions.  Doing this enables additional options in the tool which will show up when refreshed.

  • Setup Shopping Period Demo:

    • Add "Delegated Access" to your My Workspace.

      • Note: you have to do by going to "Worksite Setup" in your My Workspace site then find your My Workspace site in the list and click the checkbox next to it.  Then you click "Edit" on the top.  This will bring you to the "Site Info" page where you can click "Edit Tools".  In this page, you check "Delegated Access" and click save to add this tool to your My Workspace site.

    • Add "Shopping Period" tool to the Gateway page (!gateway).  This can be done in the Sites tool on the Administration Workspace.

    • Go to the Delegated Access tool. 

      • To start you can see how it looks to have access delegated to you by clicking "Search Users" and searching for yourself ("admin"). This is where you can grant access to specific nodes in the hierarchy.  Checking the boxes will enable the permissions.  Doing this enables additional options in the tool which will show up when refreshed.

      • Grant yourself "Shopping Admin" permission on the top node and save.

      • Refresh Browser

      • Click top nav link "Shopping Admin"

      • Choose what sites and what permissions you want to test and save.

    •  Log out (or log in as a normal user) and go to the Gateway page and use the Shopping Period tool.

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Screen Shots

Delegated Access Landing Page
This page will show which sites you’ve been granted access to.  You can search your sites or click the title in the node tree.

Site Search Page
This page allows you to search through the sites by site id, site title, site term, or instructors

User Search Page
This page allows Sakai Administrators to search for user’s to grant privileges to.

Search By Access Page