Eduserv Athens re-branded administration area and attributes

We are pleased to inform you that the Eduserv Athens re-branded administration area and MyAthens websites will be released for general use in early June 2004.  The websites will incorporate the new Eduserv Athens look currently visible on the www.athensams.net, www.athens.ac.uk and www.athens.nhs.uk websites.

In addition, we are also launching attributes within the Athens service, our first step towards full attribute capability.  Administrators will see a new 'User permissions' item on the administration area menu bar. Administrators will find all the usual facilities to manage resource permissions for their users grouped under this menu item. These are split as follows:

• Via permission sets link.  For allocation of resources via permission sets. The Add/Modify page will also include a new 'User attributes' function which, to begin with, will only display a 'Student' attribute for administrators  who wish to flag student accounts.  Although there are no resources using attributes as yet, there is significant interest from DSPs for this attribute.
• Via accounts link:  For administrators who still use the old method of individual resource allocation by account. Please note that the recommended method is to use permission sets as these are much easier to manage. The Athens Service Desk will be happy to talk anyone through the simple conversion process.

The 'Resources' menu item remains in place and includes the list of resources available at each administrative level as well as the 'Enable permission sets' link to allocate resources to Permission sets.

The functionality of MyAthens will remain unchanged but an additional line of text will appear for accounts that have been flagged with the 'student' user attribute.

An exact release date will be sent out to administrators nearer the time.

May 2004