Drupal CMS: Site Owner role

Learn about the Site Owner role in Drupal.

A new Site Owner role has been introduced on Drupal from March 2021 along with some changes to other roles.

If you are a Site Owner this guide is aimed at you and you should familiarise yourself with the responsibilities that come with your role as well as the instructions of how to grant website access for users.

Site Owners have overall responsibility for the site and now have a new editing role within Drupal. The website owner is usually the Faculty Communications Manager, departmental manager or head of department.

There are three editing roles in Drupal:

• Site Owner
• Web Content Manager (formerly Senior Editor)
• Contributor (formerly Author)

As a Site Owner you can carry out all content management tasks that Web Content Managers can carry out and additionally administer users by granting them a role within the site which will give them access to edit the content within that site.

How to grant editing access as a Site Owner

To grant users access to the site you need to follow these steps:

1. when you receive a request for editing access to one of the sites you are an owner of you need to begin by logging in to the site.
2.  go to the url of the site in question and put /user at the end of the url and then click 'log in'. Alternatively, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the + icon next to the 'Contact Us' in the footer of the site.
3. the user who is requesting access should have already logged in to the site before contacting you to grant access.
4. Once you have logged in you should see the horizontal menu along the top of the site. Click on ‘people’ on the menu.
5. when you land on the people page you will see a list of all users who have editing access to the site and also those who have logged in to the site but have no editing permissions.
6. use the search function to either find the user by their UCL username or their email address.

7. Note: If you cannot find the user on the list it is because they have not logged in to the site. You will need to ask them to do so by going to the site and adding /user on the end, or clicking on the + icon at the bottom of the website. They can also follow the instructions on the how to get access page. Once they have successfully logged in they should let you know so you can go back in and try to grant them access again. 

   CAS login error 

   If users are seeing an error when they login which states 'CAS login error' and/or you cannot find them on the user list under the 'people' page this is not a Drupal CMS account issue, this is due to the user being a temporary/visiting member of staff and their account having expired. This means they have lost access to certain services.

   In this case please tell the user to follow these steps:

   1. The user needs to speak to their line manager/computer rep/department head for approval of having their UCL account renewed.
   2. Once they have this in writing they need to contact the ISD Service Desk and tell them their account has lost its 'active association' and they would like this renewed, providing the authorisation from their department.
   3. Once that has been done they can log in again and you will be able to see them on the user list and give them access. 
8. once you have found the user click ‘edit’ on the right-hand side next to their name, this will take you into editing their profile - please do not use the 'Operations' dropdown for this.
9. you can select either Web Content Manager, Contributor or Site Owner (more information about adding an additional Site Owner can be found later on this page). If you are not sure what level of access the user should have or need to find out more about each role and what permissions they have, visit the roles and publishing how-to page. 
10. once you have selected the role click 'save'
11. when you have successfully granted access you should email the person who requested it to let them know you have granted them access and which role you have given them. 

Adding an additional Site Owner

Each site can have up to two Site Owners who are responsible for content management and administering user permissions.

As a Site Owner you can add one additional user as a Site Owner to share the responsibility.

If you need to add another Site Owner please follow the instructions mentioned earlier on this page.

Cancel a user account feature

You can also cancel a user’s account, this means that their account will be removed entirely from the website. There is not always a need to do this and you can simply go in untick the permission they have and they will no longer be able to edit on the site.

We encourage you to clean up your user list regularly using this feature and ensure leavers are removed from the site. 

If you do need to cancel a user account you can do so by following these instructions:

1. log in to the site
2. click on ‘people’ on the horizontal menu along the top of the site
3. find the user by searching for their UCL username or email
4. click on ‘cancel user account’ on the right-hand side
5. you will land on a page that will present you with two options – either to disable the account and keep its content or delete the account and make its content belong to anonymous user
6. select the option you require and then click cancel account

Note: you will not be able to undo this action so please ensure you select the option correctly

Help and support

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