List of ILIAS accounts

ILIAS accounts introduction

You want to set up and manage ILIAS accounts that are valid for the entire ILIAS installation.

You can:

  • Import ILIAS accounts
  • Allow independent registration
  • also provide local account management for non-authorized administrators
  • Optimize login processes, for example by using the automatic e-mail when you log in for the first time

The activities allow you to save time and effort.

Accessing ILIAS accounts

You want to set up, search for or delete ILIAS accounts or change data, e.g. reset passwords.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts.
  2. ILIAS shows the table with the accounts.  It lists all current users of the ILIAS installation. 

If you have so many ILIAS accounts that searching via the click-active page numbers would be too tedious, you have various options:

  • Using filters for ILIAS accounts
  • Search user

Using filters for ILIAS accounts

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts.
  2. ILIAS shows the table with the ILIAS accounts.  It lists all current users of the ILIAS installation. 
  3. Use one of the following filters: 
    • Activation: ILIAS accounts are "active" if the Active option within the ILIAS account is checked. Non-active ILIAS accounts can arise, for example, if they have been created by an independent registration with confirmation reservation or if accounts had a limited validity and have expired. 
    • Limited in time: Users with an access time limit can arise, for example, if they have been created by an independent login and an access time limit has been configured for such login processes or if ILIAS accounts have been created by an administrator with a limited validity period and the corresponding period has expired. 
    • Last login before: Select a date. The filter then only shows ILIAS accounts of people who last logged in before the specified date. Note: This function can be used to identify so-called "dead bodies". 
    • Not assigned to a course / group: Only users who are not assigned to any course or group are displayed. 
    • Global role: In this case, all global roles are available as identifiers.
  4. You can use several filter criteria in parallel to narrow down the search results even more precisely.
  5. Click on Apply filter.
  6. Only ILIAS accounts that meet the filter criteria are displayed.

Set up a new ILIAS account manually

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts
  2. ILIAS shows the table with the accounts.  It lists all current users of the ILIAS installation. 
  3. Click on the login name of a person.  
  4. ILIAS displays a form in which the user's data is entered.

Inactive users are marked with a corresponding note in the user list and can be selected using a filter field.

New users can also be created so that their account is only valid for a defined period of time.

The standard roles available here can be extended by selecting the Available checkbox in the registration form for new users when creating new global roles, and can be subsequently set in the Role properties tab.

Mandatory fields are marked with a red asterisk. If you do not know the required data, you have three options:

  1. You can use any pseudo entry, e.g. "x" or "Please change".
  2. You can remove the mandatory character of the field. However, this also affects the registration form for independent registration with ILIAS!
  3. You can use the Ignore mandatory user fields option at the end of the form: This option allows you to save the form even if mandatory entries remain empty. Users are automatically redirected to their personal data after the next login and asked to complete any missing data. Without this information, you will not be able to save your personal data and leave the site.

Import ILIAS accounts

You can import users from Excel.

Note: You will find a template for such an Excel file and instructions for use. 
Note: Please note that the functioning of the macro can be blocked by security software.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts.
  2. ILIAS shows the user table.
  3. Click the Import user button.
  4. Upload the Excel file.
  5. Click Import.
  6. ILIAS displays a new screen: The upper part of the screen shows you which conflicts ILIAS has identified during the test import. The lower part of the screen allows you to trigger the actual import of the data.
  7. You can check whether the users are assigned to the correct courses.
  8. Edit the warning messages by changing the corresponding entries in the Excel file and exporting the file to XML again and uploading it to ILIAS once more.
  9. Once you have prepared all the data so that the import can run correctly, click on Import.
  10. After the successful import, the learning platform reports that the user import has been completed.

Delete ILIAS account

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts.
  2. Activate the checkbox to the left of the login name.
  3. Select Delete from the drop-down menu above or below the table.
  4. Click Execute.

Instead of deleting an ILIAS account, it may also be sufficient to deactivate your ILIAS account.

In cases where you are not sure whether the account should actually be deleted, this may save you the effort of having to recreate a deleted ILIAS account.

If there are so many users that the ILIAS account to be deleted may not be listed on the first page, use the search function.

The deletion of ILIAS accounts can also be automated via so-called cron jobs.

Change role assignment

In addition to the personal data, the roles to which they are assigned are also very important. The role assignment can be changed directly in the ILIAS account, i.e. roles can be detached from or added to the ILIAS account.

  1. Under Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts.
  2. Click on the login name of a user.
  3. Open the Role assignment tab.
  4. ILIAS displays the assigned roles. 
  5. Set the filter differently to display other roles.
  6. To remove a role from the ILIAS account, deactivate the corresponding checkbox.
  7. Click on Change assignment.
  8. To assign another role, you must first use the filter to select the appropriate subset of roles that have not yet been assigned.
  9. As soon as the correct role is displayed in the table, activate the corresponding checkbox
  10. Click on Change assignment.
    Note: In principle, membership in courses and groups can also be managed in this way via rights management, as it is also based on assignment to specific (local) roles.

View learning progress in your ILIAS account

The learning progress can also be viewed individually in the ILIAS account of an ILIAS user.

The time of the last log-in and the total amount of time the user has been online in ILIAS is also noted there.
Access to this learning progress data consists of a "Learning progress" tab in the ILIAS account.

Search for ILIAS accounts

In addition to the simple search by login name, you can also use an advanced search by user characteristics.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Advanced user search.
  2. ILIAS displays a form with various search criteria. The availability of the search criteria depends in part on which personal data fields have been released for the search.
  3. Click on Search. 

General settings

Local accounts: Basics

Sometimes administrators want to delegate the management of accounts or distribute it across several shoulders. Supporters do not need to have access to the administration.

You want to create and manage users for categories. Some precautions must be taken to enable the option of managing local accounts:

  • Role for local administrators: Create a local role for the future local administrators in the category in which local accounts are to be created and managed. Assign the Manage local accounts right to this in the Object-specific operations section.
  • Role available for locally created users:  In ILIAS, each account must be assigned at least one global role, even if it is created by a local administrator. To make a global role available for role assignment by local account administrators, it must be explicitly prepared for this. As long as no global role is enabled for this, local account management cannot be carried out, even if the corresponding rights have been assigned.
  • Activation of the function: Local account management can be activated under Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > General settings. Without this activation, the local account management cannot be used, even if the above-mentioned precautions have been taken.

Local accounts: Restricted access

With the appropriate precautions, there is a Local accounts tab for selected users in each category. The following standard options are available there:

  • Within the local accounts, a filter can be used to select whether only local accounts, only global accounts or all users should be displayed.
  • ILIAS accounts can now also be created locally in the repository via Add local account and Import account.
  • In principle, roles can also be assigned additionally or exclusively to all users of the ILIAS installation via local account management. To do this, click on the Edit link in the Role assignment column.

Access to all ILIAS users for local administrators can lead to data protection problems when an ILIAS installation is used by several organizations.

Make sure that local administrators can only see accounts that have been created in local accounts of the corresponding category or a lower category; this restriction also applies when searching for accounts for e-mails, when assigning members to courses, groups, etc.

Restrict access to ILIAS accounts under Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > General settings.

However, it is only possible to manage accounts for users that have been created (or imported) in local accounts.
You can recognize these by the clickable login name, behind which you will find the same form that you use to set up a regular account.

This is always possible for the local role of the category currently being edited, but global roles must have been released for editing local accounts in the system administration.

Persons may delete their own account

Users should be able to delete their own account in self-service.

Note: If accounts are created via interfaces to other systems or Active Directories, this setting is useless: The accounts would be created again and again.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > General settings.
  2. Activate the checkbox Users can delete their own ILIAS account. 
  3. Enter an e-mail address if you want someone to be informed about these self-deletions. 
  4. Click Save. 

How does self-deletion by people work? 

  1. Users click on the avatar at the top right.
  2. ILIAS displays a selection menu.
  3. The user selects the Settings entry.
  4. ILIAS shows the general settings.
  5. User opens the Delete ILIAS account tab.
  6. ILIAS reports: "Here you can delete your current ILIAS account. Please note that this process cannot be undone!" Click on Continue.
  7. In the next view, enter your password as requested and click Confirm.
  8. ILIAS reports: "Your ILIAS account has been marked for deletion, please authenticate to continue the process."
  9. Click on Continue with authentication. 
  10. ILIAS displays the login page. 
  11. Log in to delete your account.

Password and password support settings

Activate password support

With automatic password support, someone can be assigned a new password by ILIAS without having to know the old password.

  • ILIAS offers a form with the help of which users can find out their forgotten login name. All you have to do is enter your own e-mail address. Rarely does anyone forget them. 
  • Users can use their login name and e-mail address to access a form for assigning a new password. 

ATTENTION: For security reasons, this mechanism does not work with accounts in the Administration role.

To activate password support, proceed as follows:

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > General settings.
  2. Activate the Enable password support checkbox.
  3. Click Save.

How do people use password support?

If password support is activated, the links [Forgot password?] and [Forgot login name?] are displayed on the login page. 

  1. A user clicks on the [Forgot password?] link on the login page.
  2. ILIAS displays an instruction text explaining the procedure, input fields for login name and e-mail. 
  3. The user fills in the input fields and clicks on Submit.
  4. ILIAS sends a password support e-mail to the e-mail address entered. It contains a link to the second password support form.
  5. The user clicks on the link address. It contains a random key that is used to authenticate the user. This key is valid for one hour and can only be used once.
  6. ILIAS displays a form for assigning a new password. ILIAS displays an instruction text explaining the procedure, input fields for login name and new password. 
  7. If the user clicks on Submit, the new password is assigned to the ILIAS account.

The instruction text on the first form contains a link to the system administrator's e-mail address, which can be entered under Administration > System settings and maintenance > General settings > General settings > Contact information.

The security of this function is based on the fact that nobody except the user himself can read the password support mail.

Set defaults for password selection

You want to define the minimum requirements for passwords:

  • Mandatory composition of letters and numbers
  • Mandatory use of special characters
  • Minimum (or maximum) length of passwords
  • Expiry of passwords after a certain period of time
  1. Open Administration > Accounts and Roles > ILIAS Accounts > Settings > General
  2. Make specifications for the passwords. 
  3. Click Save. 

Settings that are functionally very closely related to this, but are not directly related to the password design, can also be selected here:

  • Maximum number of login attempts: After the number of login attempts defined here with an incorrect password, the account in question is deactivated so that it is no longer possible to log in with the correct password until further notice: Please note, however, that no one will be automatically notified of this deactivation at this stage. So far, you have to regularly check yourself whether there are inactive accounts or leave a corresponding procedural instruction for such cases on the login page, e.g. with an e-mail address to which those affected can contact or via the automatic password support.
  • Mandatory change of password on first login: This makes it possible, for example, to initially give all persons a single password when creating the account, so that the technical support team does not know the passwords of the persons: Changing these settings during operation does not force the passwords of existing accounts to be changed; the password cannot be changed during the initial login if it originates from self-registration.

Prevent multiple simultaneous logins with the same login name

By default, you can be logged in to ILIAS multiple times with one set of credentials if it is ...

  • from different computers with the same browser
  • from the same computer with different browsers
  • (depending on the browser) from the same computer with different instances of the same browser (i.e. if the browser program is restarted again)

accesses. However, this can generally be prevented.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > General settings.
  2. Activate the Prevent simultaneous logins checkbox. 
  3. Click Save. 

Note: However, this function does not end sessions of ILIAS accounts that are already logged in multiple times at the time of saving!

Standard fields

Customize registration form

You can specify which data is queried when a user is created.

  1. Open Administration > Account and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > Standard fields. 
  2. ILIAS shows the properties of the ILIAS account.
  3. Activate the Visible checkbox in the registration form for each field that should be visible.
  4. However, only the registration forms for local user administrators and self-registrants are affected by this setting. The registration form in the system administration always contains all available data fields.
  5. For some data fields, the Visible option is not available in the registration form: These are either customizable settings of the ILIAS interface (language, skin/style) or data that the user does not (in any case) enter himself (password, roles).

Mandatory information for ILIAS accounts

When creating ILIAS accounts, the required information is marked with a red asterisk *.

By default, this is only the login data, name, gender and e-mail address; this data must be collected in any case for the account to be functional.

However, you can also declare other data to be mandatory.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS account > Settings > Standard fields. 
  2. ILIAS shows the properties of the ILIAS accounts.
  3. Activate the Required entry checkbox for each field that is to become mandatory.
  4. Click Save.

The combination Visible in the registration form = no | "Required information" = yes is not accepted by ILIAS, as otherwise mandatory fields could not be entered; a corresponding warning message appears.

For some data fields, the Required entry option is disabled:

  • is already automatically marked and grayed out so that it cannot be edited: This concerns data that ILIAS needs in any case (first and last name).
  • not available: These are either customizable settings of the ILIAS interface (language, skin/style) or data that the user does not (in any case) enter himself (password, roles).

Activate type-ahead

ILIAS users can be entered as members in various objects or assigned to a role. In this case, a user search always appears, which can be used to identify affected ILIAS accounts.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > Default fields. 
  2. Activate the Searchable checkbox to release the corresponding data for the user search.
  3. Click Save.

Note: If you work with local accounts, you can also specify that people who manage the local accounts can only find their "own" users in the system.

Change data in your personal profile yourself

Users can change their account data themselves in their personal profile.

You can control which data may be changed and which may not.

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > Default fields. 
  2. ILIAS shows the table with settings for the login accounts.
  3. Activate or deactivate the Can be changed by user in profile checkboxes in front of the desired data. 
  4. Click Save. 

Note: Default values can also be specified for the data fields Show active users and Hits/page and some others.

Note: The settings made here apply independently of role and permissions settings and affect all users of the ILIAS installation without exception! All hidden or grayed out settings can only be edited via Administration > ILIAS Accounts.

User-defined fields

Set up extra details for users

You can include further queries in the form of an ILIAS account. This also applies to the version of the form that is submitted to self-registrants.<br>

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings. > User-defined fields. 
  2. Click on Create new field at the bottom of the toolbar.
  3. ILIAS shows a form.
  4. Assign a field name.
  5. Under Field type, select whether an input field or a selection list with radio button should be created.
  6. You can specify whether the additional input field
    • should be mandatory
    • should be used in the user search and be exportable.
    • should be modifiable by the user himself.
    • should be available for course and group administrators and local account management.
    • However, all these properties can also be edited retrospectively.


Notification of new registration

Create notification about new registration

An automatically sent e-mail can provide new users with important initial information.

This is particularly interesting for self-registrations, but is also possible for accounts that are created or imported manually.

  1. Open Administration > Account and roles > ILIAS accounts > Settings > Notification of new registration.
  2. ILIAS displays a form for all activated languages.
  3. Enter a subject, different addressing variants and a message content.
  4. Click Save.

The message content can be adapted to individual aspects of the ILIAS installation and the addressed user using the following placeholders:

  • [MAIL_SALUTATION]: Addressing is placed at the beginning of the text.
  • [FIRST_NAME]: First name
  • [LAST_NAME]: Surname
  • [LOG-IN]: Log-in name
  • [PASSWORD]: password
  • [IF_PASSWORD]...[/IF_PASSWORD]: The text block surrounded by this command is only accepted if the new ILIAS account has been created including a password (i.e. if no automatic password assignment takes place, see chapter Activating automatic password generation).
  • [ADMIN_MAIL]: E-mail address of the system administrator
  • [ILIAS_URL]: URL (Internet address) of the ILIAS installation
  • [CLIENT_NAME]: Name of the client (of the partial installation)

The options in connection with a [TARGET] are only relevant if a special object in ILIAS is called up directly via a link, but a registration process must be completed before access: The automatically sent e-mail can then also contain information about the originally accessed target object, namely the title, type and URL, and since version 4.3 it is also possible to attach an attachment to the notification.

Codes

Codes to activate ILIAS account - Introduction

It is possible in ILIAS to allow people with inactive ILIAS accounts to activate them independently using a code.ILIAS accounts can be inactive if they:

  • have not yet been confirmed after self-registration.
  • were created inactive by the respective administrator.
  • have been deactivated by the respective administrator.
  • have been automatically deactivated because their validity period has expired.
  • were automatically deactivated because the password was entered incorrectly too often.

Codes can be generated in any number and can then only be used once; they are requested in a new view as soon as a person with an inactive ILIAS account attempts to log in.

Create codes to activate inactive ILIAS accounts

Several steps must be taken to allow independent activation of inactive ILIAS accounts:

  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts.
  2. ILIAS shows the table with the ILIAS accounts.  
  3. Open the Settings tab and activate the Enable reactivation of ILIAS accounts using codes checkbox.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > Authentication / New registration > ILIAS-Auth/Self-registration > Registration codes
  6. ILIAS shows a table.
  7. Click on Generate codes in the function bar.
  8. ILIAS presents a form.
  9. Specify how many codes are to be generated.
  10. Whether they should only activate the ILIAS account for a limited period of time or until a defined point in time or for an unlimited period of time.
  11. Select roles. 
  12. Select a possible time limit for receipt. 
  13. Click on Create.
  14. ILIAS displays the codes in the table. 
  15. Click on Export codes above or below the table. 
  16. ILIAS creates a text file with the codes. 
  17. Save the offered text file on your local computer. The codes it contains can now be sent to the relevant users using a mail merge program, for example.

Note: Only up to 1000 codes can be generated in one go. If you require more codes, these must be generated in several runs. 


Export

Export ILIAS accounts

XML and Excel/CSV (comma-separated values) are available as export formats:

  • The XML export enables the migration of ILIAS accounts to another ILIAS installation.
  • The Excel/CSV export can be used, for example, to create a list of ILIAS users for administrative purposes. It contains the login name and data fields that have been released for export, as well as time information such as "Last login", "Last update", "Created on", "Released on".
  1. Open Administration > Accounts and roles > ILIAS accounts.
  2. ILIAS shows the table with the accounts.  It lists all current users of the ILIAS installation. 
  3. Switch to the Export tab.
  4. First select the export format; when you click on Create export file, the file appears in the list below, including a display of the creation date. From there, the various exports can be downloaded to your local hard disk.

The resulting export file contains all ILIAS accounts.