In this article
User details
On the users page, click on a user's name to show the details page, on the right.
The panel consists of the following sections:
| Field | Attribute | Description |
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| User status and login ability (active or inactive; can or cannot login) | The status and login ability determine whether the user takes up a license.
Three states are available:
Note: you can FREE UP a license/seat by setting a user to the Inactive status or revoking its right to login. |
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| Display name + Last visit date + User profile picture |
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Primary fields |
These are the primary fields in the user profile. Note: only the Email and Login fields must contain a unique value. |
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Custom fields |
Listed below the primary fields are the custom fields, as set in Company settings > Custom fields. |
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| Extra features button & menu |
The extra features differ depending on whether it is a regular user or guest.
Guest user:
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Regular users only
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Extra features (regular users)
To access extra features, click "More actions" () atop of the section.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Assigned activities | This feature takes you to Activity center where an appropriate filter is applied to show all the activities to which the user is assigned to. This is a time saver. |
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Assign current role |
This option allows you to apply the user's current role, e.g. Participant, to all the projects where they are assigned to. Note: if the user's current role is Administrator, the role to be applied to all the user's projects is the built-in role Project manager (ID=2). |
| Security log | This menu item allows you to access the log of time-stamped password-related operations initiated by the user. A sample lag is shown below. |
| Rate history | This history log lists the dates when the user's billing hourly rate and default internal hourly rate changed. |
| Generate & email password | This feature allows you to generate a new password for the user and email it to the same. This is useful if you prefer not to know the user's new password for security reasons. This can also enhance overall security if you use this feature on a regular basis, thus lowering the risk of poor password management by your users as you force them to change their password more frequently and providing them with a strong password every time you use the feature. |
| Change password | This feature allows you to change the user's password manually. |
| Delete | This option allows you to delete the user. |
Note
Can login: turn off this switch to create so-called "resource" users. In a nutshell, a resource user is an active user you do not need to log into and have access to the system, thus sparing one user license or more. You can assign activities to them, just like normal users, but they are not able to log in themselves.
Example: there is an office car on some project, and, say, the project manager is charged with adding car maintenance costs to the project expense sheet at regular intervals, based on a mileage log kept by a project driver. In this case, the car is added as a resource user.
Note
Inactive: turn off the Active status for the users who are not to be active anymore for some reason, thus freeing up one or more user licenses available for adding new users, thus saving money. Inactive users are marked with a gray circle with a bar through it. Such users appear on the Users list (with the "Show inactive" filter applied) and in project and activity assignments if they became inactive after they had been assigned. They are not present on the user list when assigning a project or activity.
Warning
Neither "Cannot login" nor "Inactive" users can be recipients of Birdview email notifications, or can disabled users have time entries added for them by someone else.
Inviting users
Warning
Inviting users requires that the access level of the inviting user includes the "Invite users" global permission and the "Manage members" project permission.
Apart from creating users via Company settings > Users, you can invite users from Activity center. As you save their user profile in a special form, Birdview will email them an invitation with an automatically generated login/password.
To invite a user to a project or activity, follow these steps:
- In the Activity center, locate the project/activity you want to invite a user to.
- Click the "Members" attribute button.
- Click the + Invite user link in the dialog box that opens.
- Fill in the fields for the user to be invited.
- If you want to fill in additional fields on the user invitation form, click Additional options.
- When done, click Invite a user.
Note
Default internal and billing rates for the newly created user are substituted from the job role's rates. See Company settings - Job roles.
The user will be emailed a welcome letter with either an automatically generated login/password, or the ones you have specified. This requires the notification system be enabled.
Importing users
You can have users stored as a .csv file imported to Birdview using a wizard.
To be imported to Birdview, a .csv file should have values in their respective places and separated by a list separator (default is a comma). An example of .csv file fields:
- Login
- Name
- Is enabled
- Can login
- Hourly rate
- Customer name
A portion of a source .csv file for user import might look like this:
Login,Name,Email,Is enabled,Can login,Hourly rate,Customer name
felix,Felix,felix@email.com,yes,yes,150,
anna,Anna,anna@email.com,yes,yes,200,Customer02
As you can see, the first line contains the names of fields the values correspond to. Whilst it is useful for some purposes, it may wreak havoc during import. For this reason, you will have the option to skip the first line while importing data from a .csv file.
To import users, follow these steps:
- Go to Company settings > Users > Regular or Guests.
- Click the Import button above the list of users on the right.
- Make sure it has Users in the "Import list of" field. If not, select it on the dropdown list.
- Under Select .csv file, click on Choose file, and locate the source .csv file.
- Select a list separator.
- Select the Skip first line of the file checkbox (refer to the second note above).
- Click Next.
- Perform field mapping, i.e., link fields of activities being imported with Birdview ones. Use Add field to get new fields to map.
- Use Reset fields if you make a mistake adding fields.
- When you're done with mapping, click Import.
When importing guests, use the same procedure as above. The .csv file used for the import should be changed so that the user role field has "Guest" for its value for users imported as guest users.