Implement Delegated Administration

Overview

You can follow this process to implement delegated administration in either of these circumstances:

• New install. You are installing the EchoSystem Server (ESS) for the first time. You will be able to skip some steps.
• Upgrade. You have an existing ESS and are upgrading to a release that supports delegated administration. Delegated administration is supported in EchoSystem 4.0 and later.

The implementation process described here assumed you have already:

1. Reviewed the relevant documentation.
2. Gained a thorough understanding of the concepts underlying delegated administration: organizations, hierarchy, inheritance, object ownership.
3. Decided that you want to implement delegated administration.
4. Set up a test system.
5. Installed a release that supports delegated administration on that test system. Delegated administration is supported in EchoSystem 4.0 and later.
6. Attended any training classes available or held discussions with Echo360 engineers.

Implementing delegated administration consists of these steps:

1. Plan the organizational hierarchy.
2. Plan organizational ownership.
3. Plan user roles.
4. Add child organizations.
5. Reassign ownership of objects. New installs can skip this step.
6. Reassign user roles New installs can skip this step.

Plan the Organizational Hierarchy

Delegated administration allows you to create a two-level hierarchy consisting of a parent organization and as many child organizations as you like.

List the child organizations you intend to create, such as:

• Law School
• Medical School
• Business School

See About Hierarchies for discussion and examples.

Plan Organizational Ownership

The advantage of delegated administration is that child organizations can own objects (such as rooms, devices, publishers, courses, or sections), configuring them and managing them as they like.

If you implemented delegated administration already, any existing organizational hierarchy is respected when you install an upgrade.

If you have not implemented delegated organization, all objects are owned by the parent organization. In this step, you list specific objects and decide which should be owned by child organizations. See Organizational Ownership for details. Consider these guidelines:

• Some objects can only be owned by the parent organization
• Some objects can be owned by either the parent organization or a child organization
• Some objects can be shared

See Organizational Ownership for discussion and examples.

Plan User Roles

If you implemented delegated administration already, any existing user roles are respected when you install an upgrade. You can probably skip this step.

If you are implementing delegated administration for the first time, do this step.

• Add Organization Administrators. You may want to reassign some System Administrators to either the parent organization Administrator or child organization Administrator role.
• Reassign some Instructors to an auxiliary role. You may want to reassign some Instructors to the Teaching Assistant or Guest Presenter roles.
• Assign Instructors to a section. You must assign Instructors to sections.
• Appoint a License Manager. You may want to assign a staff member the new role of License Manager. It is typical for an organization Administrator to also have the role of License Manager.

See Manage Users for discussion and examples.

Add Child Organizations

See Add a Child Organization.

Reassign Ownership of Objects

New installs can skip this step.If you have an existing installation but are implementing delegated administration for the first time, do this step.

Follow this order to ensure a smooth process.

1. Reassign courses. You can reassign many courses to a child organization efficiently by using the export and import feature. See Import Courses. You do not need to reassign sections, schedules, and Echoes. These reassignments occur automatically when you reassign the course.
2. Reassign rooms. If you have only a few rooms to reassign to new organizations, you can edit the room details. If you have many rooms to reassign, use the export and import feature. The devices associated with a room are automatically reassigned when you reassign the room.
3. Reassign devices. You can reassign devices in two ways. First, when you reassign a room, the device associated with the room is also reassigned. Second, if a device is not associated with a room, you can associate it by editing the Current Room Assignment setting.
4. Reassign security modules. A security module is typically shared, but you can reassign it by editing the security module details. Navigate to System > Security and edit the security module.
5. Reassign media processors. Edit the media processor details. Navigate to Configuration > Devices and edit the media processor.
6. Reassign publishers. Edit the publisher details. Navigate to Configuration > Publishers and edit the publisher.

Reassign User Roles

New installs can skip this step. If you have an existing installation but are implementing delegated administration for the first time, do this step.

Organizational user roles can be reassigned efficiently by using the export and import features with a spreadsheet program such as Excel. See Import Users. You can use this feature to assign the Academic Staff role.

After you assign the Academic Staff role to a user, you will probably want to assign a section role (Instructor, Guest Presenter, Student Presenter, Teaching Assistant). These roles must be assigned role by role. See People and Section Roles.