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LibraryH3lp is software used by libraries, educators, and non-profits for better customer service.

Friday, May 27, 2022

New Users Management page

If you have administrative rights to all or part of your LibraryH3lp subscription, this post is for you. We've updated the users management page in the administrative dashboard. The new page has been in beta testing for quite some time and we've wrapped in customer feedback as well as bug fixes during that time. Please continue to provide constructive feedback on how we can further improve this page.

Updated user management page in administrative dashboard

We'll update the administrative dashboard on each of the servers in the coming weeks. And we'll update this section as we go to note the date. Here's the release schedule:

  • Canada - May 27, 2022
  • Singapore - June 21, 2022
  • Europe - June 23. 2022
  • Main (US) - July 5, 2022

Without further ado, let's dive in to highlight some of the changes and nifty new features for user management!

Creating and updating users

There is a user creation wizard which guides you through the set-up process for new users. If you would like your new user to be set up exactly as one of your existing users, there's a copy feature that lets you do just that. In the wizard, you'll set up staffing assignments, chat contacts, canned messages (if applicable), conference room assignments (if applicable), and administrative permissions if desired.

You can use the same wizard to update existing users too! Plus each user has their own page where you can view and adjust settings as needed.

Managing chat contacts

We've completely revamped how chat contacts are managed. When staffing chat, you can see other users and queues in your chat contacts and administrators can set this up for users in the user management page.

The manage chat contacts button lets you quickly and easily buddy selected or all users with each other with just a few clicks. And if you want to fine-tune the contacts, there's a "Customize Contacts" option. For example, maybe you want to remove contacts instead of add contacts. 

After setting up chat contacts and when a user is staffing chat, that user will see other users under the "Contacts" heading and queues under the "Queues" heading. Guests always appear in the "LibraryH3lp" heading. If desired, you can customize these headings. For example, you could set up headings such that contacts are organized by home department.

When users forget to logout

There is no way for an administrator to force someone offline if that user has forgotten to logout. This is because chat clients have built-in logic to reconnect users who get disconnected and, if you try to boot the user, that user's chat client simply reconnects. As an administrator, the next best thing to do is opt that user out of the queue staffing assignments. The user remains logged in but, once opted out, their availability no longer impacts queue availability and so your queues will not remain falsely online.

There is a red "Disable staffing" button that you can use to easily opt a user out queue assignments. 
When the user is ready to staff again, that user can opt back into the queue staffing assignments just after logging into the webclient. Or you can use the "Enable staffing" button to opt the user back into the queue assignments.

Administrative permissions

You can have as many full administrators as you want for your subscription. Administrators have full access to all aspects of a subscription. Any user can be granted administrator privileges by adding them to the Administrators group.

You can also create "mini-admins" to give users access to a sub-portion of the overall account. Mini-admins are a great way to provide a degree of isolation to departments sharing a subscription. For example, if a campus library manages the overall subscription, the admissions department can have one or more mini-admin users that will be able to manage the chat service for the admissions department without needing to bother the library folks every time they need to make a change. 

But I loved the old page

We've got you covered. There is a link to the old user management page from the new page. We're no longer maintaining the old page but do plan to keep it available for some time.





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