Enhancements to Athens administration area

Today we have released several enhancements to the Athens administrator interface, and these are detailed below.  We would also like to inform you of a change in the way that information about ‘at-risk’ maintenance periods and other service-affecting issues are advertised; this information follows at the end of this message.

1. Enhancements
   
   

   Today the following enhancements have been released in the Athens administration interface:
   

   E-mailing users after a password change

   Athens administrators now have the option of notifying users via e-mail when their account password has been changed.  The option to e-mail the user is on the ‘Modify account’ page, beneath the password fields, and it is left unchecked for security reasons, e.g. if you want to disable the account without informing the user.

   Athens organisation ID now visible on administration home page

   Although your Athens organisation ID has always been available by selecting Administrators > Organisation IDs, we have now made it easier to see by adding it to the heading on the administration interface home page, which now says: “Welcome to the Athens administration area for [your organisation name] - Organisation ID: [your org_ID]”.

   Resetting number of personal accounts to be created from a self-registration account

   It is now possible to reset the number of personal accounts that can be created from a self-registration ‘parent’ account.  This is available when modifying the account; next to the field ‘Number of personal accounts that can still be created from this account’ is a link titled “reset”.  Clicking on this link will automatically reset the value to the same value in the field above (“Maximum number of personal accounts this account can create”).

   Persistent ID now visible on account details pages

   Many services protected by Athens allow users to change preferences, save searches/alerts or have other functionality that requires such changes to be presented to the user the next time they use the service.  Some services require users to perform a separate log in to access these preferences, but others store them by recording them against what is called the Athens persistent user ID, and is completely different from the Athens account username.

   This ID has always been invisible to users and Athens administrators, but sometimes service providers have found it necessary to obtain this ID in order to troubleshoot problems that are being experienced by one or a small number of users.  The Eduserv Athens Service Desk has previously been supplying this information to service providers upon request, but now Athens administrators can view the Athens persistent user ID for access and personal accounts by viewing the relevant account details.  This can then be given to service provider support teams if necessary.
   

2. Athens ‘at-risk’ messages and service-affecting issues
   
   

   At the moment, Athens at-risk messages and other information about service-affecting issues are sent to a number of different e-mail aliases.  However, with the growth in the number of organisations using Athens in recent years, maintaining multiple lists has become problematic.

   Therefore, effective immediately, all Athens at-risk messages and information about other service issues will only be sent to the [athens-service-issues] list, which was announced in May 2004 for this purpose.  You can sign up to this list by completing the form at http://mail-list.eduserv.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/athens-service-issues.  You are encouraged to do so at your earliest convenience if you want to stay informed about service-affecting issues.