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A Login as user feature


Guest Morrigan

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Well admins have the ability to look at users, change their password but they can't login as a user to verify problems with user accounts. It would be really awesome to have a feature that only Root admins/admins have to be able to look up a user and click a link to "Login as user" which opens in a new window to verify issues.

Being that Administrators have so much power they may not be able to see issues from the same point of view as a member AND it may be a problem with that users computer but happening on your forum. I think this would alleviate having to make a test user account, though I like to have one sometimes, and having to change a users password to try to duplicate a users problem.

Just a thought.

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I do like the idea from an admin point of view. When setting up an initial forums it does make it nice to actually see what they see. Sometimes I set a forum to show and didn't want to etc. It also does make troubleshooting a lot easier.

As a user though I have some serious concerns. I will preface the following with this, I know that an admin can change passwords via the ACP or blank it via phpmyadmin or query. With that said I don't like the idea that an admin can just log in as me and do something without me knowing about it. What if he sends messages to other people, reads through my PMs, etc. I know that I don't own the site as a user and stuff, but I still don't like that idea. If there was a control that only Root Admins (as suggested previously) had that access, and it left me a message I don't think I would mind it so much.

I think IPN has the ability to log in as a client, never tried it though. Will look later and see how it works out.

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Ultimately I view it just like I view reading of PMs (PM loggers). You can do it already if you know how - it's your site after all. phpmyadmin will show you what's in the database. But do we want to facilitate it?

Personally when I need to see what a user sees I ask them for their login, or if it's ok for me to reset their login. Might take a few steps longer, but it's a tad more respectful. If I just want to see what a user GROUP sees, I can create a new user in the ACP in that group or with the same permissions and use that account.

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I actually like the idea as long as (as mentioned above) the user is somehow informed you have logged into (and out of?) their account.

That way you wouldn't have to start asking for their password which is information i certainly don't want to ask for and/or know.

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Ultimately I view it just like I view reading of PMs (PM loggers). You can do it already if you know how - it's your site after all. phpmyadmin will show you what's in the database. But do we want to facilitate it?



Personally when I need to see what a user sees I ask them for their login, or if it's ok for me to reset their login. Might take a few steps longer, but it's a tad more respectful. If I just want to see what a user GROUP sees, I can create a new user in the ACP in that group or with the same permissions and use that account.



Brandon,

I like that approach. I know when I submit some weird bugs I get for Nexus I tell them, if you need access let me know. I don't giving them access or letting them use my account as I trust them to have access to it. If I had a forum problem here I would have no issues with someone from IPS using my account to fix it, as long as I knew. I think you had it perfect. As long as someone knows then it shouldn't be a problem. Can you say you trust the admins on every site you use?

Rob,
I don't want to know their password either. To many risks associated with, plus there is no "secure" method to transfer it. I would just rather reset it if I had to be on as that user.
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Well there could be a setting in the users profile that is a check mark that says "Allow Administrator to login as you for support issues" and if it's not checked and they are having a problem the admin can say "Well I can't login as you because it's disabled so I can't assist you unless you enable it." Then at least they are aware that the admin is going to login as them.

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