Manage user groups

General

User groups are meant to group administration users in individual groups. However, this option is limited in functionality at the moment. There are no real permissions bound to a group. Groups serve more as a macro or textual convenience to work with groups of administration users.

User group management

If you click on the Create/edit user groups button located in the Configuration dialog, you will be taken to the user group management page.

Create user groups

In order to add a user group, click on the Add new user group button located on the upper-left corner of the window. Type in the name of the user group and a short description and click on the Save button:

Now, you can add users to the newly created user group by selecting from the dropdown list the desired user and then clicking on the Add user button.

{{Hint|You may observe below that the owner/creator of the user group is automatically added to the user group

Click Close (upper-right part of the window) to go back to the user groups list. You can observe the newly added group in the list. The columns of the table include:

• User group ID : It shows a unique id that is designated automatically to each user group;
• Name : The name of the user group;
• Description : The description of the user group;
• Owner : The owner/creator of the user group. The owner cannot be changed. If this is really necessary, you have to delete the group and create another one.
• Members : It shows the number of the members of the user group;
• Action : The last column shows a set of actions that are available for each user group from the user groups list. The following user group actions are presented below: view users, edit user group, email user group, and delete user group'.

View user group members

If you click on the green table, a more detailed view of the members of the user group will be shown.

Edit user group

Clicking on the green pen allows you to edit the name and the description of the respective user group.

Email user group

The green mail sign allows you to send an e-mail to a group of users. When asked to email all the members of that user group, the following options will be listed on your screen:

• Send me a copy: If ticked, an email will be send to the owner of the user group/the one who created the user group;
• Subject: Type in the desired subject of your e-mail;
• Message: Type in the desired message you wish to send to the members of the user group.

Then, click on the send button located under the Message text box.

Delete user group

To delete a user group, simply click the red trash button in the line with the user group that should be deleted and hit OK.

Grant survey permissions to a user group

A user group can be picked up in order to offer specific survey permissions, permissions like editing the questions, activating the survey, and maybe viewing the responses among others. Adding a user group behaves like a macro function that simply adds all the current members of the user group with the same privileges at that same time to the Survey.

To change the survey permissions, go to the Settings menu of your survey, which includes the general settings of your installation. Then, click on Survey permissions and choose to whom would you like to offer permissions. Click on add a user group and select the user group to which you would like to add the permission rights.

You will select in the next step the permissions that you will allocate to the members of that user group. Do not forget to click on the double right arrowhead to get an extended view of the permissions matrix.

After you finished editing the survey permissions, click on the Save button, which is located in the upper right part of the screen.

Some examples are provided below in order to help you get a better understanding of the Limesurvey's survey permissions system.

Thing to watch out for

Some problems related to the user group functions are presented below:

• Changes to a user group after it was added in the survey will not cause changes to the survey permissions. For example, if new users are added to an user group that was already added in the survey, the respective new users won't have the same permissions as the rest of the user group members. For this to happen, the updated user group has to be offered again the permissions so that the new user group members can receive the user group rights.
• If you delete a user from a user group that was previously given survey permissions, it does not mean that the respective user will lose the survey permissions. To remove his or her permission rights, you will have to delete his account from the survey permission list

Because the user group functions are still experimental, we kindly ask you to pay attention to any inconsistencies you may find while using LimeSurvey and report them via x and y.

Examples

Some examples are provided below in order to better understand the functionalities of a LimeSurvey user group:

I would like to inform some users that they have received certain survey permissions

• Log in;
• Go to the user groups list and click on the green mail sign (located in the Action row);
• Type the subject and the text body of the e-mail;
• Send it.

I would like to grant certain permission rights to a user group

• Log in as admin (or as a user that has the 'Survey security' and 'Survey content' permission)
• Create a user group
• Add users to the user group
• Go to survey permissions and navigation page of the survey
• Add the user group and offer its member the permissions.

I would like to add a user to a user group and offer him the same user group permissions

As mentioned above. adding a user group behaves like a macro function that simply adds all the current members of the user group, easing the process of granting survey permissions. However, if a new member is added to that user group, that member will not automatically receive the same rights that the members of his user group have. Therefore, you will have to repeat the steps shown in the example from above in order to grant him the same rights or you just add him separately (in the Survey security and Presentation panel).

I would like to remove the permissions of a user that is a member of a user group

Removing him from the group should leave him also without the user group permissions allocated to him before. However, due to the limitations of the user group function, this is not happening. Even if you delete the user from the user group, he still has survey permissions. Therefore, a workaround is to manually delete him from the 'Survey permissions' table.

• Log in as administrator (or as a user with 'Survey security' permission);
• Go to the Survey permissions page, which can be accessed from the Settings of the survey;
• Delete the respective user from the 'Survey permission' table.

I would like to remove all the user group members with access to one of my surveys

As mentioned above, deleting a user from a group won't retrieve his survey permissions. The same applies also to 'user groups'. Deleting a user group won't retrieve the survey permissions that were previously allocated to the members of the repsective user group. Therefore, they have to be manually removed at the moment from the 'Survey permission' table.