Introduction

As a Superadmin or a Power User with granted permissions, you can temporarily login as another user in your platform to perform actions on their behalf to help with troubleshooting in their learning platform. 

When impersonating a user, you’ll have access to exactly what the user can access in the platform and you’ll be able to operate in the platform as if you logged in as that user.

General rules

Before we start, please note that:

• In order to use the impersonation functionality, the Notifications app must be activated in your platform.
• Superadmins can impersonate any user or Power User
• Superadmin cannot impersonate other Superadmins
• Superadmin cannot impersonate users while impersonating a Power User
• Power Users can impersonate only the users assigned to them as resources
• Power Users cannot impersonate other Power Users
• When the Extended Enterprise app is active, Power Users can only impersonate the users belonging to the domains they are assigned to

Impersonating a user

In order to log in as one of the users in your platform, begin by accessing the Admin Menu from the gear icon in the top right corner of your platform. Then, select the Users option in the E-Learning section.

On the All Users page, find the user you want to impersonate, click on the ellipsis button at the end of the user’s row and select Log In as This User or Log In as This Power User, depending on the user level. Confirm your action by pressing the corresponding button. If the Extended Enterprise app is active in your platform, you will be prompted to select the domain in which you want to login as the selected user before the confirmation step. As a Power User, you can only impersonate the users belonging to the domains you are assigned to.

As a Superadmin, you can start impersonating a Power User also from the Power Users management page (Admin Menu → Power Users option in the E-Learning section). While in the Power Users tab, click on the ellipsis button at the end of the Power User’s row and select Log In as This Power User.

As a Power User, you’ll be able to impersonate only the users assigned to you as resources, and you won’t be able to impersonate other Power Users.

You’ll be redirected to the homepage of the account of the user you chose to impersonate.

Warning: Always remember that all of the actions you perform while you’re impersonating another user are real actions.

If you complete a course while you are logged in as another user, then, when the user you impersonated logs into his or her account again, they will find that this course has been completed (and the course will be marked as completed by the user you impersonated, not by you). Similarly, if you progress the course, when the user logs into their platform again, they will be able to resume the course from the point where you left off.

As long as you are logged into the platform as another user, a warning bar will be shown at the top of the platform, on every page and menu you’ll navigate. The message in the bar will remind you that you are temporarily logged in as one of your users (the username is mentioned in the message).

Switching back to your account

In order to end the impersonation and log in again as yourself, click on Switch Back to Your Account on the right side of the bar at the top of any platform page.

You’ll be redirected either to the All Users page or to the Power Users Management page, depending on where you started impersonating the user. From that moment on, you are logged into the platform with your personal account.

Always end the impersonation by clicking the Switch Back to Your Account button in the bar at the top of the page. If you end the impersonation by letting your session expire, the system isn’t able to track when the impersonation session ended and, as a consequence, cannot send a notification to the impersonated user.

Audit Trail

The actions that you perform using the user’s account while impersonating them are tracked by the Audit Trail as if they were performed by the impersonated user, together with the details of the Superadmin or Power User account which impersonated the user.

Notifications

In order to use the impersonation functionality, the Notifications app must be activated in your platform so that when you log in as one of your users, a notification is immediately sent to the impersonated user (in-platform and, if your user’s email is configured in the platform, via email) to inform them that you accessed the platform on their behalf.

Since the notification is sent to the impersonated users while you are logged in as that user, remember not to open it, so that when the user logs into his or her account, they will see the unread notification. If you open the notification, it won’t be deleted, but the user may not notice it when logging into their platform, since the red dot won’t be shown over the bell icon indicating that there are unread notifications.

When you switch back to your account, the user you impersonated receives another notification informing them that you logged out from their account.

The notifications for this functionality are:

• User impersonation has started
• User impersonation has ended

They are both active by default but Superadmins can edit their text, configure and deactivate them according to your needs. Power Users cannot see and configure these notifications.

E-Signature

When impersonating another user, for security reasons, you cannot access E-Signature courses into which the user that you are impersonating is enrolled. When a user is enrolled in an E-Signature course, they have to go through a secondary authentication process in order to prove their identity.

Accessing an E-Signature course of another user would mean having access to personal temporary One Time Passwords (OTP) needed for E-Signature authentication. As a consequence, the electronic signature will lose its legal validity (of course, in order for the learner’s E-Signature to have legal validity, the course must be completed by the user who signs it and in his or her own account).

Security

In order to grant the security of the impersonated user:

• You cannot perform any operation requiring payments (such as purchasing courses and learning plans or buying and renewing subscriptions) when impersonating a user. You can perform those actions only when logged in as yourself.
• You cannot change the password of the user you are impersonating.
• When a Power User impersonates a user, the Power User will have full visibility over the resources (courses, learning plans, catalogs) the user has visibility on.
• When impersonating an instructor, the Power User will also be able to perform actions exclusively available for this user role, such as evaluating and marking attendance to courses.

Conditions of use

If the Privacy Policy (and its sub-policies, if any) is configured in the platform, the user you wish to impersonate must have given consent to it (and its sub-policies, if any) in order for you to proceed with the impersonation. The same happens for the Terms & Conditions. If both of them are configured, the user must give consent to both of them for you to impersonate them.

If the user has not given consent to the Privacy Policy (and its sub-policies, if any) or to the Terms & Conditions, or to both of them (if they are both configured):

• as a Superadmin, you will need to give consent on their behalf in order to log in as that user. Before switching back to your account, you have to revert your acceptance by reaching the user's My Profile page and then unchecking the acceptance boxes in the Conditions of Use section. This action will log you out as that user immediately and the user will be prompted to accept the Privacy Policy and/or the Terms & Conditions upon their first login.
• as a Power User, you are not allowed to impersonate that user.

Find out more about the conditions of use in your platform.

Custom domain

If you have customized the domain of your platform through via Domain Management, when impersonating a user, you’ll be logged in as the user in the platform custom domain and not in the https://[platform_name].docebosaas.com domain.

Table customization

If you customize the layout of tables (such as the Course Management table, or the Users table) via the Columns Management option while impersonating a user, your customization will not be kept once you switch back to your account.