Users and Applications

User Types

In EMhub, there are four main types of users:

• Principal investigators

  Principal investigator users are independent researchers who run a lab.

  • Their PI field should be None (no one else is their PI)

  • Their accounts have some admin rights for the bookings of their labs

  Tip

  For example, in SciLifeLab the users are linked to the OrderPortal and PI should also have the following properties:

  • Have a non-empty Invoice reference field in the portal

  • Belong to an existing Application in the Portal/EMhub (also called Bags)

• Lab members

  Lab members should be associated with a given PI. Then, they will inherit the booking rights that their PI has (i.e, associated Applications, booking slots, resources allocation quota, etc)

• Facility staff

  These users are managers or admin in the application and have the rights to do administrative tasks (e.g. create or modify users, make special bookings, handle applications, etc.)

• Admin/Developers

  These users are more used for internal application maintenance on top of usual management tasks as managers. The users could have some extra pages/options in the application that deal more with setup and configuration.

Note

Below are general properties common to all user types:

Username and email	Should be unique for each user in the system.
Status	Possible values: active or inactive. Inactive users can not access the system and are often not shown.
Password	Password for authentication.
Roles	Different roles that can be used to set the kind of user (PI, admin, manager, etc.) and also extra permissions (e.g., independent).

Users Pages

Several pages in EMhub display users’ information and allow admins to modify it.

List All

This page provides access to all users in the system. Like many other tables, it features a search box where filtering by name or any other text is possible. From this page, one can edit existing user information or register a new user.

The actions column is only shown to Admins. It allows to modify or delete given users and even log in to the system as that user (for development/debugging purposes).

Groups

It is also possible to list users grouped by their PI.

New users

From the users list page, one can register new users by clicking on the Register New User button. This will open the following dialog for entering basic information about the new user.

After the user is registered, a new entry will be stored in the database for that user. The registration process might vary from one place to another.

Note

At SciLifeLab, an email with a confirmation link is sent after a new user is registered. Then, the user can follow the link to complete the registration process by setting a password and filling in any missing information.

Additionally, users can be imported from the Application Portal: Importing Users at SciLifeLab.

Note

At St. Jude, users are registered to enable them in the local database. After that, they use the institutional authentication (via LDAP config in EMHub).

Applications

Applications in EMhub serve as a way to group PIs (and users under their labs) with some logical organization. Rules defined for an application will be shared by all users belonging to that application. For example, applications could represent different universities accessing the facility, different departments within the same university, or simply different projects.

Note

At SciLifeLab, applications are used to request access to the facility instruments. Usually, there is one application per university, and an external committee reviews it. Once an application is approved, a number of days are assigned for each microscope for the valid period. Applications are also used there for reporting and invoicing.

Applications are created in the Application Portal and imported into EMhub.

Templates

Facility staff users (roles admin or manager) can create application Templates, essentially forms with input fields required for a certain type of Application. Managers can create new application templates and disable old ones before opening a new application period. (which will still be linked to previous applications). (WORK IN PROGRESS)