Creating IMS User Accounts

Updated on 07 Sep 2024
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Take Note

Focal Points / site administrators are responsible for creating IMS user accounts. Please contact your Focal Point to have your IMS account administered.

Common issues preventing login

The account has not been set up with the correct User Name, thus preventing SSO .
The account has been expired.
The account has been deactivated.

Creating an Account

To create an IMS User Account:

Go to Settings \ Maintenance \ Security \ Users and click the Plus button to open the New Item: User creation dialogue.

Filling in the appropriate fields

To have a User account set up, please follow the below steps.

General Details

The account can be temporarily or permanently deactivated with the Is Active checkbox. The User will not be able to log in to an inactive account.
The Single Sign on checkbox enables SSO login. More information on the subject can be found here.
The User Name has to be unique and will depend on the SSO configuration.

Why do I see the error "The field must be unique when creating a new user account?"

Likely, there is an inactive account with the same User Name. Check Inactive accounts in the filter on the top-right of the User grid. This will make the inactive accounts visible in the grid.

The Short Name is optional and can be provided in the form FirstName.LastName or an appropriate company designation can be used. The Short Name will appear under Technician when entering measurements.
The Full Name is optional and can be provided in the form FirstName LastName (Company role). The Full Name is shown to the user when logged in to IMS on the right-hand side.
The (company) E-mail address needs to be provided so that support may know whom to contact if a ticket is submitted from this account. Generally, the appropriate format is Firstname.Lastname@companydomain.com. The E-mail address is also required for resetting the lost account password, sending reports, and receiving notifications from certain IMS modules.
Adding a Role is the most sensitive part of creating an Account. Available Roles range from "Viewer" (a set of roles that only allow read access) to "Admin" (a set of roles meant for site administrators). More details about this topic can be found here.
User Profiles can be set up to allow site administrators easier account management. More details on this subject can be found here.
Discipline allows setting up User privileges based on the company department. More details on this subject can be found here.
The Company free text entry field allows the basic company information to be entered.

Training details

This section allows the administrator to keep track of training, as provided to the User. Multiple training entries may be added.

The Training field allows setting up the training type.
Training Date and Valid Until allow the training validity interval to be specified.
The Trainer field is a free text entry field allowing for the name of the responsible trainer to be entered.

Approval rights

The Approval section allows setting up approval rights. Multiple approval rights may be set up. The process consists of two parts:

Location is the Site, Plant, or Unit on which the user will have approval rights. Approval rights will need to be entered for each location separately.
Max approval level allows the selection of one of the available Approval levels.

More account settings

These settings are hidden by default. Click More to make the section visible.

Activation Code can be use to set up a one-time password for the User account. The password can be entered manually or generated by clicking Generate.
Effective date can be used to set up the starting date from which the User account will be valid. For example, if there is a training scheduled that should be completed on a specific date, the same date can be entered into this box.
Expired date can be used to set up an expiry date, i.e., a date after which logging in to IMS via this User account will be blocked. This is useful for setting up contractor accounts with a fixed expiry date.
Public API key can be used to set up public API calls.
MEC can be checked to make the MEC optimization dashboard accessible to the User account.

Single Sign On (SSO)

SSO with ADFS

Contact your company support to enable SSO in IMS via ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) as IMS accounts will be administered by them directly.

For Shell Users, IMS should work with SSO. This means that Users should be able to log into IMS using only their Shell Active Directory username. There are two parts to enabling SSO on an account:

Tick the Single sign on checkbox.
Input the User Name as specified in the Shell Active Directory, i.e., Europe\FirstName.LastName.

To find the domain username, the following can be done on the User's Shell PC:

Click his/her computer's Start button.
Search for "cmd".
Select "Command Prompt".
Once the command prompt is started, input "whoami".
The output of said command must be set as the User Name in IMS.

Take Note

When the Shell Active Directory User Name changes, the IMS account needs to be updated to reflect that change, otherwise SSO will not function.

Setting up IMS accounts without SSO

Companies that do not use SSO, can set up User accounts with a password for IMS login. The procedure is as follows:

Enter an any desirable User Name, but it must be unique.
Untick the Single sign on checkbox.
Input or generate an Activation Code.

The User must use the Activation Code (together with their assigned User Name) for the first login to IMS. Thereafter the User will be redirected automatically to My Account where they will need to reset their password.