Back to Socialtext Administrator's Guide.
Back to Control Panel: Table of Contents.
In a Socialtext environment with LDAP, the Username and Email fields may be different. With LDAP in place, the users will login using their Username, not their email address. Socialtext systems accommodate LDAP automatically and mass-add of users under LDAP should require no additional steps from the administrator.
This documentation focuses on default, non-LDAP configurations, although it is practically the same for LDAP users. Visit Notes for LDAP/AD administrators for more information pertaining to LDAP configurations.
Begin typing the person's name into the Add Existing User look-ahead box. (Note: the look-ahead searches for the term in the first-name and last-name fields, not the username <generally the email> field.) As you type, you are presented with possible choices:
If the user does not appear in the look-ahead box, you may add them via Add New User .
Click on any of these choices to add the user as a Member of this account.
A message like the following is displayed:
If there was a problem, an error message appears here instead.
Note: With the ability to customize Profile fields your list may display a different set of fields. The above list shows Socialtext's stock fields in their default state. Visit Profile Fields for more information on how to customize this field list.
The 'full name' is calculated by combining the First Name and Last Name fields. You can also add an optional Preferred Name. If this field is used, the Preferred Name is displayed in place of the 'full name', for example, Bob Smith appears instead of Robert Smith. The Preferred Name is used as the complete name. For example, if you enter 'Jo', the user is known as 'Jo' (i.e. it cannot be combined with either the first or last name).
Enter the data and click the Add User button.
E-mail Address is the only required field. If the field is blank, you receive the following message:
Likewise, if the e-mail address does not 'look right', you see:
All other fields may be blank or populated, as needed.
If the user is successfully added, the browser navigates you to the new user's page and display the "added user" message and the new user's details:
When you click the Back link near the top of the page, you find your user in the Users list.
When you click Add/Update Multiple Users, you see the following page:
To use this feature:
Within the CSV file, the order of fields is not important; you can include the fields in any order you wish. Further, the only fields that are required in the CSV file are Username and Email Address; all other fields are considered optional. Note that Username and Email Address fields must be the same (unless you are using an LDAP/AD configuration .)
Note that the system does not check to see if the phone number fields look like valid telephone numbers; what you type is what you get.
An externally sourced field is a field that gets data from a source other than a user (for example, LDAP). If your CSV file contains this field, all data will be ignored - it cannot be updated with a CSV file. You can change the data source setting to User if you wish by editing the field via the account's Profile fields link.
A hidden field is one that is invisible to users, but is included in the user's profile fields. It may be hidden for privacy reasons, or simply because the field is not used within this account's profiles. Your CSV file has the ability to populate data for hidden fields. If the field contains data and is user-editable (not externally sourced), it is populated.
Note, no spaces are used after the commas.
To leave a field blank, insert the next command with no text or space. For example:
... has the following blank fields: Password, Work Phone.
Remember that the number of fields in a row must match the number of headers or the line is not be parsed.
... would produce an error. However:
... can be parsed correctly.
After the import completes, a Results email is generated and sent to the email account for the Business Admin user who performed the CSV file import. The Results email list users who were correctly imported as will as users that were not imported because the corresponding line in the CSV file could not be correctly parsed. Typical errors might be:
See HRIS support in the Control Panel (Example) for another example incorporating primary account assignment.
Restrictions you may apply:
By default, none of the Restrictions boxes are checked.
Also note that that you can update or add users using st-ldap . See Easy bulk-add of LDAP Users for more information.
where the username entries may be an email address or name assigned from an Active Directory or LDAP installation.
Clicking Edit directly below the user's name takes you to the Edit User page for that person:
Currently, you may only edit the user's First, Middle, or Last name.
For other fields, you can use the Add New User form to update the user. Enter the username and email_address field of the user you wish to update and populate any fields that need updating. The data in all other fields remain the same. This method is not recommended, however, as any error when entering the user's username or email_address results in a whole new user being created. It is better to allow the user to update this personal information via her or his profile page .
Note: The only way to 'erase' user data already entered is to enter new data. At present, there is no way to enter blank text (making the field blank).
To update fields with a CSV:
Back to Socialtext Administrator's Guide.
Back to Control Panel: Table of Contents.
Back to Control Panel: Table of Contents.
Contents
- A Note about LDAP and non-LDAP systems.
- Adding users in Socialtext
- Adding users via the Control Panel - Account display
- Adding a single User
- Adding multiple Users
- CSV file format
- Add Multiple Users Example
- Using Excel to add users
- Restrictions
- Notes for LDAP/AD administrators
- Deactivating Multiple Users
- Multiple User Deactivation
- Updating a single user
- Updating users with a CSV
- A Note about Socialtext People
A Note about LDAP and non-LDAP systems.
In a Socialtext environment without LDAP, it is required that the Username and Email fields be identical. Although the users will load without error, if the two fields are not the same those users will not be able to log in.In a Socialtext environment with LDAP, the Username and Email fields may be different. With LDAP in place, the users will login using their Username, not their email address. Socialtext systems accommodate LDAP automatically and mass-add of users under LDAP should require no additional steps from the administrator.
This documentation focuses on default, non-LDAP configurations, although it is practically the same for LDAP users. Visit Notes for LDAP/AD administrators for more information pertaining to LDAP configurations.
Adding users in Socialtext
The following information deals with how to add users to an account with the Control Panel. Other ways to add users are:- Invite! button in the Navigation Menu
- Invite to Workspaces with the Control Panel Workspace Invite page
- Invite to Groups with the Control Panel Group Invite page
Adding users via the Control Panel - Account display
When you display an Account's information you can:- add a single user who already exists in the system to the account with the Add Existing User box
- add a single new user to the account with the Add New User button
- add many new users via a CSV file with the Add/Update Multiple Users button
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Adding a single User
Add Existing User
Use the Add Existing User tool to quickly add a user who already exists in the system:
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Begin typing the person's name into the Add Existing User look-ahead box. (Note: the look-ahead searches for the term in the first-name and last-name fields, not the username <generally the email> field.) As you type, you are presented with possible choices:
 |
If the user does not appear in the look-ahead box, you may add them via Add New User .
Click on any of these choices to add the user as a Member of this account.
A message like the following is displayed:
 |
If there was a problem, an error message appears here instead.
Add New User
There are two ways to add a new user:- by clicking the Add New User link on an account's page .
- by clicking Create a User in the Creating section of the Control Panel frontpage .
 |
Note: With the ability to customize Profile fields your list may display a different set of fields. The above list shows Socialtext's stock fields in their default state. Visit Profile Fields for more information on how to customize this field list.
The 'full name' is calculated by combining the First Name and Last Name fields. You can also add an optional Preferred Name. If this field is used, the Preferred Name is displayed in place of the 'full name', for example, Bob Smith appears instead of Robert Smith. The Preferred Name is used as the complete name. For example, if you enter 'Jo', the user is known as 'Jo' (i.e. it cannot be combined with either the first or last name).
Enter the data and click the Add User button.
E-mail Address is the only required field. If the field is blank, you receive the following message:
 |
Likewise, if the e-mail address does not 'look right', you see:
 |
All other fields may be blank or populated, as needed.
If the user is successfully added, the browser navigates you to the new user's page and display the "added user" message and the new user's details:
 |
When you click the Back link near the top of the page, you find your user in the Users list.
Adding multiple Users
You may add several users at once with Add/Update Multiple Users.When you click Add/Update Multiple Users, you see the following page:
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| For a larger image, click here . |
To use this feature:
- Ensure you have a valid CSV file .
- Click the Browse... button. A file selection box appears. Choose the file you wish to upload. Click Open. (If you wish to terminate the process, click Cancel.) The file path now appears in the Select the CSV file containing users to add: field.
- Ensure to choose any Restrictions you wish to apply to these users (before you click Upload).
- Click the Upload button. The file is uploaded and users are extracted.
- When the system has finished importing the file, a message appears at the top of the page.
CSV file format
A CSV file is a comma delimited file containing the data on each user you wish to add. The file begins with a single line of data which specifies the fields that you're using, and is then followed by lines of data for each user (one user per line). Within each line, fields are separate by commas. See Example CSV .Within the CSV file, the order of fields is not important; you can include the fields in any order you wish. Further, the only fields that are required in the CSV file are Username and Email Address; all other fields are considered optional. Note that Username and Email Address fields must be the same (unless you are using an LDAP/AD configuration .)
| IMPORTANT NOTE: As of Socialtext 7.6, empty field cells delete previous values when the file is uploaded. Previously, if a field value was blank, the old value was retained. See HRIS support in the Control Panel (IMPORTANT change to user upload functionality) for more information. |
Valid CSV Fields
The following fields are valid within a CSV file. Please note that spelling of the fields in the CSV header IS important.- Username: This field is required. If it is blank you receive an error message informing you that the user on that particular line was not added.
- Generally, Username must match the value for Email Address. (Not the case for LDAP configurations.)
- If a user already exists with this Username, their record is updated to match the data provided in the input data.
- If no user exists with this Username, a new user is created with the provided data.
- Email Address: This field is required. The system checks to see if the e-mail looks valid, and if it is malformed or missing you receive an error message informing you that the user was not added.
- First Name: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Last Name: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Preferred Name: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank. It is truncated to 255 characters in length.
- externalid: If iPaaS is enabled, this is the iPaaS external id.
- Password:
- If a password is provided, it must be at least 6 (six) characters long or you receive the following message for that user: "Line 1: Passwords must be at least 6 characters long". The user at the noted line is not added.
- If the password field is left blank and the line contains a new user, an e-mail message is sent to the user with instructions on how they can set their password and access the wiki.
- If the password field is left blank and the user already exists, their password is untouched and is left as-is.
- Primary Account Name: This is the name (not ID number) of the account you wish to assign as the user's primary account.
- For existing users, if this field is blank, the user's primary account is not changed. The user's secondary account is set to the account to which you are adding/updating new users.
- For existing and new users, if this field is populated, the user's primary account is changed to the listed account. This does not have to be the account to which you are adding/updating users. The account to which you are adding/updating users becomes one of the user's secondary accounts.
- For new users, if this field is blank, the account to which you are adding/updating users becomes the user's primary account.
- If this is a non-existent account name, you receive an error (i.e. you cannot create new accounts in this manner).
- For existing users, if Remove Membership is 'Y' then remove the user from this account if the account to which you are adding/updating users is not the existing user's primary account.
- Visit HRIS support in the Control Panel (Example) to see this in action.
- Remove Membership: ('Y' or 'N' or blank)
- This is used when you wish to remove a user's secondary account membership from the the account to which you are adding/updating users. Visit HRIS support in the Control Panel (Example) to see how this works.
- This cannot be used to remove the user's primary account membership from the account to which you are adding/updating the users, i.e. if the Primary Account is the account to which you are adding/updating users and the Remove Membership field is 'Y', you receive an error.
- For obvious reasons, if you try to 'remove membership' for a new user, you receive an error. Every user must be assigned to at least one account.
- Position: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Company: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Location: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Work Phone: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Mobile Phone: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Home Phone: Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- AOL SN: Screen name with AOL. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Yahoo SN: Screen name with Yahoo! Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- GTalk SN: Screen name with GTalk. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Skype SN: Screen name with Skype. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Sametime SN: Screen name with Sametime. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Twitter SN: Screen name with Twitter. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Blog: URL for the user's blog. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Personal URL: URL for the user's personal web page. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- LinkedIn URL: URL for the user on LinkedIn. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Facebook URL: URL for the user on Facebook. Any data is accepted, or it may be blank.
- Custom Fields: If you have defined any Custom Profile Fields, you can include those fields in your CSV file too. Simply include the "Field Name" (that you specified when you created the Custom Field ) in the CSV header.
Note that the system does not check to see if the phone number fields look like valid telephone numbers; what you type is what you get.
Hidden and Externally Sourced fields
All fields, both stock and custom , can be configured to be hidden and/or externally sourced .An externally sourced field is a field that gets data from a source other than a user (for example, LDAP). If your CSV file contains this field, all data will be ignored - it cannot be updated with a CSV file. You can change the data source setting to User if you wish by editing the field via the account's Profile fields link.
A hidden field is one that is invisible to users, but is included in the user's profile fields. It may be hidden for privacy reasons, or simply because the field is not used within this account's profiles. Your CSV file has the ability to populate data for hidden fields. If the field contains data and is user-editable (not externally sourced), it is populated.
Example CSV
Username,Email Address,First Name,Last Name,Password,Work Phone aperson@omikron.com,aperson@omikron.com,A,Person,my password,555-123-4567
Note, no spaces are used after the commas.
To leave a field blank, insert the next command with no text or space. For example:
Username,Email Address,First Name,Last Name,Password,Work Phone aperson@omikron.com,aperson@omikron.com,A,Person,,
... has the following blank fields: Password, Work Phone.
Remember that the number of fields in a row must match the number of headers or the line is not be parsed.
Username,Email Address,First Name,Last Name,Password,Work Phone aperson@omikron.com,aperson@omikron.com,A,Person
... would produce an error. However:
Username,Email Address,First Name,Last Name,Password,Work Phone aperson@omikron.com,aperson@omikron.com,A,Person,,
... can be parsed correctly.
Using Outlook 2003 and 2007 to create a CSV file for Socialtext
You can create the CSV file needed to add users to Socialtext from your Outlook contacts. Visit Creating a Users CSV file from Outlook 2007 to learn how.Add Multiple Users Example
| IMPORTANT NOTE: As of Socialtext 7.6, empty field cells delete previous values when the file is uploaded. Previously, if a field value was blank, the old value was retained. See HRIS support in the Control Panel (IMPORTANT change to user upload functionality) for more information. |
After the import completes, a Results email is generated and sent to the email account for the Business Admin user who performed the CSV file import. The Results email list users who were correctly imported as will as users that were not imported because the corresponding line in the CSV file could not be correctly parsed. Typical errors might be:
- The user had the same username and email address as an existing user.
- The user did not contain data in the required fields.
- The user's email address did not contain the '@' symbol.
See HRIS support in the Control Panel (Example) for another example incorporating primary account assignment.
Using Excel to add users
You can use Excel to create a Users CSV file to upload to Socialtext.- Download the mass-add-users.xls file from this page, and load it into Excel.
- Populate the file with your data. Please note that the
"Username" and "E-mail Address" columns are required for all users and must be identical (unless using LDAP/AD configurations); any users with blank/missing values in these columns are skipped. All other columns/fields are optional.
- Remember: You can also populate custom fields by adding these fields (columns) of data. (They must first be created in your account.)
- Export the Excel spreadsheet to CSV:
- From the menu, select "File | Save As..."
- Type in the "File name" you wish to save as, and "Save as type: CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)"
- Click "Save". If Excel warns you that the selected file type does not support workbooks with multiple sheets, click "Ok". If Excel then warns you that the file may contain features that are not compatible with the CSV (Comma delimited) format, select "Yes" (keep this format).
Restrictions
When you add multiple users, you have the ability to add any or all of three optional restrictions to their User records. Until the restrictions on the User record have been satisfied, Users are unable to log in to the system.Restrictions you may apply:
- Confirm e-mail address: causes an e-mail to be sent to each User to confirm their e-mail address.
- Force password change: causes the Password Change or I don't know my password e-mail to be sent to each User. This email provides a link to allow the user to pick a new password.
- Require External ID (for CAC authentication): sets a flag on each User record that they must be externally identified before they log in to Socialtext. If any of the Users have existing external IDs set, the old external ID is removed from the User record.
By default, none of the Restrictions boxes are checked.
Notes for LDAP/AD administrators
If you are using only an LDAP/AD configuration note that data in the Username and Email Address fields need not be identical. You may view LDAP_Users.csv for an example.Also note that that you can update or add users using st-ldap . See Easy bulk-add of LDAP Users for more information.
Deactivating Multiple Users
Multiple User Deactivation
It is now possible for a Business Administrator to deactivate multiple users from Socialtext. The Control Panel for an Account now has an option called 'Deactivate Multple Users' that admins can use to upload a CSV file containing the usernames that needs to be deactivated. An email is sent to the administrator once the file is processed showing success and error records. The format for the csv file is simply:username lemmy atem joe blow foo@bar.com someuser@socialtext.com
where the username entries may be an email address or name assigned from an Active Directory or LDAP installation.
Updating a single user
If the user was not created via LDAP/AD, then you have the ability to edit the User from the Individual User Display :
 |
Clicking Edit directly below the user's name takes you to the Edit User page for that person:
 |
Currently, you may only edit the user's First, Middle, or Last name.
For other fields, you can use the Add New User form to update the user. Enter the username and email_address field of the user you wish to update and populate any fields that need updating. The data in all other fields remain the same. This method is not recommended, however, as any error when entering the user's username or email_address results in a whole new user being created. It is better to allow the user to update this personal information via her or his profile page .
Note: The only way to 'erase' user data already entered is to enter new data. At present, there is no way to enter blank text (making the field blank).
Updating users with a CSV
You can use CSV files to update your users. This is particularly useful if you have created new custom fields that you wish to populate.To update fields with a CSV:
- Create a CSV file containing:
- a header line with username, email_address, and any other fields you wish to populate (including custom fields if you wish).
- rows with the number of fields matching the number of headers.
- For non-LDAP users, all username and email_adress fields must be populated, and match the current data.
- For LDAP users, all username fields must be populated, and match current usernames.
- Any other fields that are blank are not copied into the existing data, thus retaining the old value.
- Ensure any new custom fields you have included in your CSV file have been created via the account's Profile Fields action.
- Go to your account's Users table.
- Click
Add/Update Multiple Users .
-
- Click the Browse... button. A file selection box appears. Choose your csv file. Click Open. (If you wish to terminate the process, click Cancel.) The file path now appears in the Data File field.
- Click the Upload button. The file is uploaded and the updates are extracted.
- When the system has finished parsing the file, you see a message noting the users from the file have been loaded.
A Note about Socialtext People
Socialtext People is a paid option in Socialtext Systems. Regardless of whether Socialtext People is enabled for the account in question, if an administrator uses the mass-add feature with Profile information, Socialtext will populate the database with information for each user's People Profile. Upon activating the People feature, the users' Profiles will be available within the People Directory.Back to Socialtext Administrator's Guide.
Back to Control Panel: Table of Contents.
Created by 
System User on Sep 8, 2015 7:44am.
Updated by System User on Sep 8, 2015 7:44am.
(1 revision,
437 views)
System User on Sep 8, 2015 7:44am.
Updated by System User on Sep 8, 2015 7:44am.
(1 revision,
437 views)
