09 January 2014, 2:02

Is there any way for new users to be given copies of Pages (e.g. site or institution Pages) automatically - for them to use as Page 'templates'?

The nearest I have got is to automatically add them to Groups which themselves have copy-able Pages. But, this isn't quite the same thing. 

09 January 2014, 13:13

Hi Howard,

Yes, when you're on the Sharing tab for a Site Page, if you expand "Advanced Options" and tick "Allow copying", you'll see an additional checkbox "Copy for new users" that will cause the page to be automatically copied into the portfolio of each new user when their account is created. See http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.8/administration/config_site.html#index-25

There's a similar feature for Institution pages, to copy a page into a user's portfolio when they join the Institution.

Cheers,

Aaron

10 January 2014, 2:20

Got it!  Thanks Aaron :)

10 January 2014, 2:58

Update - went and tried it (on a 1.8 site) and there is no such option. What might I be missing?  I am site admin...

EDIT: Aaaargh... someone loved Javascript too much. Those extra options only appear when you actually tick the "allow copying" option. It would be easier if they were greyed out, surely? 

10 January 2014, 11:05

You know, I experienced exactly the same problem locating that checkbox yesterday. Maybe I'll change it to gray-out for Mahara 1.9.

Cheers,

Aaron

10 January 2014, 12:25

On further reflection I don't think there's any reason to require the "Allow copying" setting in order to give a copy of the page to each new user. They're really two completely separate features. So in Mahara 1.9 we'll just always display and always enable the settings.

I've filed a bug about this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1267633

11 January 2014, 17:23

Thanks for bringing my attention to these features. Often though the site or institution is created, users added and then Site or Institution pages created. Would it be difficult to have selected Site or Admin pages copied in the same way but into existing users' portfolios?

20 January 2014, 15:11

Hello Pascale,

I think this is trickier because you'd potentially be creating pages in a lot of user accounts (think of MyPortfolio). Furthermore, Mahara (still) has a hands-off policy when it comes to user's portfolios / accounts once they have been created: We don't make any changes that the user doesn't know about. That means: Journal names are not changed, no content put into their account (unless it is a feedback file), dashboard is not changed etc., template pages that they copied are not changed.

If such a feature existed to put templates into existing users' accounts, the admin would need to be able to choose the accounts into which to place the pages / collections. At the moment, users can simply copy them themselves.

Cheers

Kristina

07 November 2018, 9:08

Kristina,

Your response was very helpful.

We've created a template for our eportfolio and it will be automatically copied into the pages of new users.  However, we'll make the template a page that can be copied into the portfolios of existing users.

Thanks!

Jon

07 November 2018, 9:12

We're going to copy a page into a new user's portfolio using this technique.

Is there any way to fix elements of the page so new users can't delete/alter specific components but have access to edit/revise other components?

Thanks!

Jon