I get the gist of granting admin rights, but am unclear of the nitty-gritty as to how they actually operate. Does a selection have to be made in each area of access(Admin Features; Admin Functions; Email Notifications)? I guess I'm asking: what's tied into what??

For example, in order to grant admin. rights to someone assigned the job of dealing with email bouncebacks (& all/any changes required as a result of examining them), what would one check off? Clearly, a check in the box next to 'Email Bouncebacks' is a start. But what other permissions/access tied into that task would have to be granted? Would they need access to 'Email the Class'? 'Manage Classmates'? All of those?

I don't know where bouncebacks reside within the site. As Root Admin, I got a list of them--but I don't have a clue where to tell someone else how/where to find or get to them.

This is just one example. To know what access is being doled out, it's kind of critical to know what's tied up with what. Anything that you can offer to clarify those interconnections would be GREATLY appreciated!

Hi Cheryl,

Your question is very insightful, but it is the first time anyone has asked it. Given that, we'd like to ask you a favor if you're amenable. Would you mind taking a closer look at all the option checkboxes under Grant Admin Access and telling us which ones you think need more explanation and which ones seem pretty self-explanatory? We can use the information to make the system work more intiutively for everyone. Also, any additional questions about that specific feature along with your best guess as to the answers to those questions would be much appreciated.

In the meantime, checking Email Bouncebacks does allow a classmate to be notified of and to view and delete bounce messages, but not to go into a classmate's contact info and change an email address. For that, you need to enable Manage Classmates, but you would not need to enable Email the Class. When you authorize a co-admin to access email bounces, they will receive the same notification in the upper right corner of the Home Page that you do, and will be able to click through to the page where the bounces can be examined.

Cheryl, Thanks for starting this thread! Admin rights is why I am in the forum at this moment.

Eric, I have additional requests...

• I would like to limit admins who are responsible for only one or two pages to those pages only. I'm crossing my fingers that it is possible.
• The same request is made for managing class lists on multi-class sites. I would like to limit admins to only their class year profiles or additional years, if necessary.

That's my wish list.

Those options are not available at present, Gwen. Classmate who have access to Edit Site Pages have access to all pages, and classmates who have access to Manage Classmate have access to all classmate profiles regardless of year. Both requests seem to me both quite reasonable and logical, and we'll certainly put them on the wishlist, but I can't guarantee they'll be done anytime soon.

Eric B Bassey wrote:

Thanks, Eric. Though I'd love to have the options today, I am happy knowing they will be on the wish list. Now I need to pray to the wish-list lords to nudge them up when you have the wish-list pow-wow... after 3.0 is launched completely. Can't wait!

This is a great topic, as I'm working with deciding which mates should be co-admins and which have the capability of doing it, if they wish. Tonite I came across something. I have a classmate (actually my wife as a guest, who helps a lot and is my beta site - nice to have a classmate sitting next to me to see how a non-admin is affected when changes are made) to whom I granted some rights. Photo galleries was not among them. Looking to see how it worked, I asked her to add a photo or two to test. As root admin, I allowed all classmates with approvals. She added a few photos, and they went in with NO approvals. As I said she has some admin rights, but nothing to do with photo galleries. Is that a possible bug or a feature? I then took away all admin rights and the photos she added needed approvals, as expected. Thanks..

One of the admin checkboxes is "Reunion Reports". What does this refer to exactly?

Still awaiting clarification on Tom's question.

Thanks I forgot about it. At my age, questions have a half-life of 4 hours - LOL!

My wife says it's only 1 minute.

If they are assigned to Reunion Reports and are not assigned to the Reunion Planner they will see a link in the admin functions area called Reunion Reports.

Jessica
Class Creator

Thanks Jessica

Hello all!

Is it already on the wish list to further limit co-admins' access? For example, on our multi-year site, we make each class year responsible for their own reunion event. Yet, in order to do that, these co-admins are given access to ALL reunion events; they receive RSVP notifications for ALL active events, and they can view reports for ALL events. I would love to have a "year-centric" admin access option, if that is a possibility.

Cheers!
Terry

The "year-centric" idea has been discussed and it remains on the table as something we would like to integrate into the multi year sites. However we do not have any ETA for this new functionality.

Adding to the wishlist...

This past week, I've realized how good it would be to have In Memory separated as the Reunion Planner, Gallery Creator and such. This would allow us to assign an admin specifically to that rather than Edit Pages.

The more I consider this, I have another thought:

Under Grant Admin Access, add Site Pages. As part of Site Pages, there would be a drop down list of every page we have - whether it is a planner, gallery creator - even one we add. Another drop down, lists the admins on the site. These two give us the option to choose a page/section and assign it to an admin.

Add to that: "Add an another admin to this task" with the admin drop down. That would be great for those who have more than one admin assisting on their site.

So there you have my

We just trust each admin with an assigned task. Again KISS in the generally accepted meaning

Absolutely, "Trust" is the key word when assigning access to new admins! Unfortunately, not all are as savvy with the technology and mistakes do happen.

I find that it's pretty darn challenging to have all four of the following objectives met when looking for co-admins: trust, technical confidence, desire to help, and time available to volunteer. And the more control root admins have to limit their access, the less critical are the first two objectives: trust and technical confidence.

I sincerely appreciate any ideas that the ClassCreator team can incorporate, (now or down the road), to improve root control of admin access limits throughout all of the software's features. The more robust, the better!

Thank you for considering!!!!

--Terry

Oh, and I have a question... If I assign the privilege to upload yearbook photos, but NOT the privilege to manage classmates, how does that work?

Oops, never mind! I just logged in as my "test co-admin" and can see a truncated version of the Manage Classmates page, where "upload yearbook photo" is the only active function. That works!

Hi Terry,
Unless I am totally in the dark (which is possible), the only way to add yearbook photos is through Manage Classmates. There you go... another admin need but one that says.... they do not need access to private contact info.

Gwen Corey wrote:

Thanks, Gwen! I don't know why I keep forgetting to log in with my alternate test ID! I was able to answer my own question (updated above). It works fine. Cheers!

This boils down to a philosophy difference. When you restrict a VOLUNTEER to minutia 'parts only', it implies mistrust.

I'd like to see a log of who modified what page(s) on what date(s). Now that would be helpful for managing a site. (I'm the one that had CC log the admin that modified a page for exactly that reason - audit). An AUDIT trail helps track down when something strange happens vs attempting to blame anyone. It's a volunteer job.

ENCOURAGE people, don't discourage. Giving a person responsibility/trust is an encouragement. Look for tools to help identify problems vs attempting to restrict their HELP.

Whether one is "savvy" enough is an interesting view. CC is designed for those NOT "savvy" in the technical sense. All this does is add another level of confusion. There have been MANY posts regarding confusion on what a co-admin can or can not do with the current system. Over and over. (Edit: an example just posted now )

We want an EASY TO USE system. Adding this is the opposite. I'd much rather see the File Vault work like a proper FTP site (mentioned by ALL of us with FTP experience). That covers a LOT of things that CC does not do in accepted ways for maintaining a site. This is obviously all dependent on how "savvy" one is to realize how much easier CC could be.

Jack Vermeulen wrote:

Yes, yes, yes!!! I agree. Good points, Jack. I admit that I was concerned about making it too complicated with my earlier suggestion.

The existing notification system is great for our registered members, but I would really benefit from a detailed Change Log. Also, my guess is that most of this is already available and might not require a major overhaul of the software... just a framework for sharing it with root admins, perhaps...(?)

Thanks!
Hopefully,
Terry

Great. Yes this data is accessible by CC. Just needs to be streamed to a log we can access. Editing pages is easy since it's one area for all pages. As a compromise, I'd be happy with that for now and wait for the rest to catch up.

Totally different and weird. I just got an email notice for the first post Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 6:30 PM (my time of course).

For a while there I thought it was 2012 and I was dreaming this was 2014

Jack Vermeulen wrote:

Situation: I have an alumni site with one other admin who has access to about everything. As she now has a site for her class, we could use help with In Memory. One of the tasks that needs to be done is to check each In Memory entry with a rose - to see if the obit has been entered correctly. (Trust me, some are a mess.) That and entering members In Memory when needed is the In Memory Admin's position we wish to fill.

In addition, we would like someone to handle our veterans' page.

Is access to all our pages okay. Sure. However, it can be overwhelming to many when they begin. The idea is not only to have more admins but to ease them into it. We see what a new admin can do before opening more or the rest of the site to them.

Jack Vermeulen wrote:

Somewhere in the Help Forums, I brought this up. I'd love to track what Admins do. I would have caught the In Memory obit problems quickly - saving us the task now in front of us.

Jack, I would not hinder a volunteer. I agree CC is easy to use but telling someone that does not remove their "I'm not sure I can do this" concern. I help admins in all phases of their sites. I recent had two just starting out and apprehensive. One is not rolling along very well; the other took off after getting the hang of it. I love watching the latter happen! Others can do this for years and still need help. Seeing this has given me understanding beyond what I think - that CC is meant for everyone to use. Yes it is... some just need the confidence in what is new to them.

Jack Vermeulen wrote:

We want an EASY TO USE system. Adding this is the opposite. I'd much rather see the File Vault work like a proper FTP site (mentioned by ALL of us with FTP experience). That covers a LOT of things that CC does not do in accepted ways for maintaining a site. This is obviously all dependent on how "savvy" one is to realize how much easier CC could be.

FTP experience, check. Have that, Jack. To me, that would have been the way to make it happen from the start... in keeping with the 'ease' of using CC.

Jack, when it comes to making things easier, we are on the same page. Hope that didn't cause you to fall off your chair!

Yes, the goal is to keep it easy. The fewer "clicks" the better. The fact is that everyone is different.

One of our admins does the obits and missing stuff. He LOVES doing that. And I HATE doing that Will one of us mess up? Yup. It's not like we are going to blow anything up. Well, just a little bit.

The perfect site is where one could just talk about what you want things to look like and -poof- it happens right before your eyes. Like when you tell your phone to dial a number

I've used the voice recognition on my computer to learn it in case there comes a time I need to use it. It is not as cool but works.

The "poof" it is done... could be added to the wish list, CC.
Jack Vermeulen wrote:

The perfect site is where one could just talk about what you want things to look like and -poof- it happens right before your eyes. Like when you tell your phone to dial a number

I don't find the bouncebacks that difficult. So far most, if not all, of my bouncebacks are caused by folks who did not put the site in their email contacts. When they joined the site, they didn't read the page. I resolved this by sending them personal emails from me with something about the reunion in the subject. I think I am down to only one person now. Also, when I wrote the first person, I copied what I wrote and just pasted it in whenever I needed to write another one. It was pretty quick and easy. I hope this helps.

Gwen Corey wrote:

The "poof" it is done... could be added to the wish list, CC.

I'm all for the "poof" it's done option!

I know I am late to the game here but this appears to be the most recent thread on Admin rights. And I'm probably asking for the moon but here goes.

In addition to an audit report, I'd like to see somewhat of a "training" access where changes made would require my approval before going live. The idea of giving someone Edit Site Page access and having them create or change critical pages right out of the shoot makes me nervous. Could there be a training step where approval is needed for X time and then once the Admin is confident in their abilities give them the full access? This would be for any of the items granted. Sort of like a Driver's Permit before getting the license.

Barring this - does anyone else have a suggestion for how to deal with this?