Accounts

Editors are given Google GSuite accounts, and need adding in to the backend of the site (edit.nouse.co.uk)

Google GSuite

We are grandfathered into a free Google GSuite plan, which we use to provide elected members with prestigious firstname.lastname@nouse.co.uk email accounts and the sundry other Google services. One day, this will probably end and we’ll have to host our own email. Meanwhile, we have a limit of 200 users, so should be gradually deleting the accounts of alumni who no longer use their accounts.

Adding users

First, a current Super Administrator must give you an account and assign it Super Administrator status.

The “admin console” is where everything is done. (There are also official apps you can get on your mobile phone.)

You can create users one-by-one (“manually”). Google will generate random temporary password, and help you to send the details to the person’s @york.ac.uk email address - if after account creation you click “more actions”, then “email login info” in the modal that appears.

Alternatively, you can choose the “bulk” option, where you upload a CSV file (a sort of spreadsheet). This isn’t quite as brilliant as it sounds: Google is a bit fussy about the formatting, and won’t help you with generating passwords or emailing details.

Groups

Most sections have “group” email addresses (e.g. tech@nouse.co.uk) of which the editors are all members. Emails sent to sport@nouse.co.uk go to all the sports editors, for example. After each election, be sure to add editors to groups, and remove old editors from groups. Main editors are the owners of the respective group, and deputies are members except in the case of the deputy editor in chief - who is the owner of their group.

Individuals can also have “aliases”, but this is only used for common misspellings of people’s names and for sections such as Film & Television where content can sometimes be presented as if they were two separate sections. Even though deputy-editor@nouse.co.uk has only one recipient, it is a Group, because it’s easier to manage like that.

Note that groups must all be explicitly configured to “Also allow anyone on the Internet to post messages” – there’s a box somewhere that needs to be ticked.

Backend

Simply adding their university username and nouse username alongside their name and role is all you need to do. Best to search their name to see if they already have a website account first though as they may already have an account from writing for us before or from maybe being a former editor.

There’s a “macro” to cache the dates for adding roles to make things quicker. There’s also a “end all roles today” button which is useful for wiping the slate clean at annual elections.