User impersonation

This feature is designed for support or administration.

With the correct right, a user can take another user's name and/or rights. This is called impersonation.

UX

Impersonating is done from the users list.

1. Open the users list
2. Search for the user to impersonate
3. Select the radio button left to his name
4. Choose whether to use his rights or not

When impersonating,

• the users list icon is blue
• the impersonated user is shown as a grey badge on top of the screen
• you may access the user profile by clicking on the badge

To stop impersonating, you may:

• select your own users
• or select No impersonation option

note

When not impersonating, both No impersonation option and your own user's name will be shown as selected.

Behavior

When you are impersonating:

• the original user id (you) is still tracked in system logs, for audits
• any resource created will be:
  • owned by the impersonated user
  • tracked as created by you
• any resource modified will be:
  • tracked as edited by you

Use cases

When impersonating, you have the choice to:

• take the other users rights
• keep yours

Some use cases:

Using user's rights	Keeping original user rights
Check his rights and what he sees on the UI	Create a whisperer for him
Troubleshoot a support ticket	Create a controller for him
Load a Spider link as if you were the link creator. And see what he saw.	Create a team for him

tip

This is a very useful feature for support! 👍

How does it work?

When impersonating, you are asking a security token exchange in Spider back office.
The new token contains the name of the impersonated and (option), his rights.