Learn how to add, edit, give access or restrict access to users as well as manage your user dashboard in Kotobee Author.

Managing your library users

One of the most important areas in your library management is user management. You must be capable of adding, removing, activating, and deactivating users any time you want. Note that user management only applies when the library is set to private. Public libraries by definition allow for any users to access their books.

For a play by play on how to manage Library user permissions, watch the video below:

To get started:

1. Go to the Manage tab. 
2. Click on the Libraries item in the left column. 
3. Select your library from the dropdown list. For library management, you will spend most of your time in this part of Kotobee Author.
4. Select Users from the left column under Libraries. You will see a listing of all the users in your system. 

Library permissions

Depending on the library permission settings, you can choose to show or hide unauthorized books from users. It is worth first going through the Adjusting your library settings article before continuing with this one.

Scopes of permission

With Kotobee Library, there are three scopes of permission that you can give a user:

1. The first scope can give global access to the library. With this scope, the user has access over all books in the library, and future books uploaded to the library. 
2. The next scope is category permissions. The user here is assigned permissions to access all books that are under a certain category/genre. You can wisely use this by creating a category named "free", another named "basic", and then a third one named "premium". Each category can hold a number of books. Depending on your user's payment, you can give them access to one of those categories. It is worth mentioning that you may hide the category name from the Customize subsection. 
3. The final scope is book permissions, where the user is given access to a particular book.

Permission mediators

In addition to applying different scopes of permissions directly to a user, you can do that using two different mediators: 

• Promo codes
• User roles 

By applying a promo code to a user (or them applying it themselves), or setting a user role to a user, that user will gain all permissions included in the promo code or user role.

Adding users

When adding a new user, it is important to be aware of what scope of permission they are given. There are two ways to control a permission scope. 

The first way is by being inside the scope of a certain entity before adding the users. Elaborating further: 

• To give global access: Simply click on the Users subsection.
• To give category access, click on the Categories subsection, and click Users next to the appropriate category. 
• To give book access, click on the Books subsection and under the appropriate book, click on Users. 

To add a new user for this permission scope, enter their email address and click on + Add user (in the case of global access, the button will be + Add global user). You will see the user added to the list, but they won't be able to access the library unless they've activated their account. Besides the user’s email, you will find a number of action shortcuts to choose from:

• Activate/Deactivate: Immediately activates the user. They will receive an email asking him to reset his password.  
• Send activation email: This will send an email to the user with an activation email, confirming the validity and ownership of their email.  
• Change password: Changes the user's password.
• Devices: Displays the list of devices authorized to access the ebook (read below).
• Permissions: Edits the user's permissions to books, categories, or the entire library.
• Delete: Deletes the user. This button only appears under the All Users list.
• Remove access: Removes access to the current scope. This button only appears under the Global Users or Users with Access lists.
  

Editing user permissions

Click on the user's Permissions button to view the list of current permissions allowed. Permission scopes will be highlighted in different colors. You may delete any of the current permissions from the list. To add global access to the library, click on the Add global access over library button. To add access to a certain book or category, simply type in the first few letters in the relevant fields, and select the book or category from the list that will appear. If you're giving access to a certain book, by clicking on the 3 dots options button (before the delete button) you will be able to optionally set which chapters you'd like to restrict access to.

User dashboard

The user dashboard shows all the information you have on a particular user on the same page, along with the permissions given and action buttons.

Default activation for new users

Under the Actions button, the Enable for new users option allows newly registered users to immediately receive access to the current permission scope (global, category, or book). Depending on the user or category you have selected, users will be able to open the relevant books. You may also set a default user role for newly registered users.

Device DRM