Carnegie Mellon University

Administer an AWPS Collection

Follow the instructions below to manage your AWPS collection.

The following describes the administrative rights (permissions) each type of content owner has to an AWPS collection.

Name Description
Owner

An owner is the individual who requests a collection. Only a web technical team administrator can change an owner.

An owner has full administrative access to the collection, including the ability to add or remove other administrators and all other groups.

Administrator An administrator has full administrative access to a collection, including the ability to add or remove other administrators and all other groups.
Writer A writer can publish and view the content on the staging server before a site is published.
Reviewer A reviewer can view the content on the staging server before a site is published.

Administrators and owners can set collection permissions, which specify administrators, writers, and reviewers.

  1. Log in to the Andrew Web Publishing System.
  2. Select Administer this collection.
  3. Under Permissions, click Collection permissions.
  4. Follow the instructions in the interface.

Note: To change content permissions; see the section "Define Content (Directory) Permission" below.

Owners, administrators, and reviewers can access the Publishing Log and the Access Log Report to help track their collections.

  • The Publishing Log keeps a diary of all actions performed on a selected collection, including the activity, date and user ID.
  • The Access Log Report schedules collection reports. It lets you specify the timetable and format of a log report that you receive daily, weekly, or monthly by email.

To access the Publishing Log and the Access Log Report, do the following.

  1. Log in to the AWPS. 
  2. Select Administer this collection for the collection that you want to view a log or report for.
  3. Click Publishing Log or Access Log reports.

Note: The AWPS sends a report to the person who is logged in when the report is requested.

Administrators and owners can set content permissions, which determine who can access a collection or the sub-directories within a collection.

Access Control Options

You can select one of the following access control options for each directory.

Name Description
Anyone (Default) This option has no access control and no restriction on the directory, which allows anyone to read a collection. The directory is removed from the access control list. Use this option to remove restrictions set previously.
Any Andrew User This option restricts directory access to any logged-in Andrew user.
Specific Users This option restricts directory access only to Andrew or Qatar userIDs that you specify.

Administrators and owners can set collection permissions.

  1. Log in to the Andrew Web Publishing System.
  2. Select Administer this collection.
  3. Under Permissions, click Content permissions.
  4. Follow the instructions in the interface.

Note: This page accepts only Andrew userIDs, not real names, and will verify all userIDs.

Access Control Tips

  • If you change a directory's access control type, the change will not take effect until you publish the collection.
  • If you add access controls for a directory that does not exist on the staging server, future publishes will fail. To correct this, either remove the access controls, or create an empty directory on the staging server before publishing.
  • You can add access restrictions to a directory before creating the actual directory. This helps assure that new content has the appropriate restrictions.
  • If you toggle between the Any Andrew user and the Specific Andrew users options, the user list that you specify will be maintained.
  • When you add directories, the system does not verify the existence of a directory. Therefore, type the directory name exactly as it appears on the server, including upper- and lower-case letters.
  • Directories appear in the order in which you add them.
  • When you set directory permissions, you see additional access options, as well as access control options for the root of the collection.

As a backup, and before you request deletion of an AWPS collection, copy and archive your files.

IMPORTANT: To understand your responsibilities for maintaining data, see Guidelines for Data Protection, Data Steward, and Data Custodian.

Follow these steps to archive a collection. Before you begin, you will need:

  • the name of your collection. If you do not know it, log in to the AWPS.
  • secure file-transfer protocol (SFTP) software. Computing Services supports SSH Tectia for Windows and Fetch for Mac.
  1. Open the SFTP software to transfer your files to your AWPS collection, and enter the following:
    • Host name: publishing.andrew.cmu.edu
    • UserID and password: your Andrew userID and password
    • Initial Folder: the name of your collection
  2. In the SFTP window, drag and drop from the collection to your computer or to your department's preferred storage location (e.g., CMU Box) .

Follow these steps to delete a collection.

  1. After you archive your files to safe storage, delete the files on publishing.andrew.cmu.edu, then publish the empty collection.
  2. To delete the collection name and URL, complete the Delete an AWPS Collection form.