As a Super Admin for your site, users will likely contact you if they're experiencing an issue.
Even though you can access the site as an Admin, much of your users' experiences are dependent upon their permissions. As a result, your experience could be very different than theirs, which could make helping them a challenge.
The Impersonate feature circumvents this limitation by letting you:
- log in to your site as a different user ("impersonate" the user) and
- experience your site from that user's perspective.
This makes user-based and user-specific issues much easier to replicate, troubleshoot, diagnose, and correct!
Before you impersonate
- By default, the ability to impersonate is OFF, but Super Admins can turn it ON (or off), and even turn it off permanently. If turned off permanently, you must create a case to request that it be turned back ON). You can control this on the Admin > Settings > Security > Impersonation page. See the Manage Impersonation section of the Manage User Data Privacy article to learn more.
- The Member Impersonation Notification email is sent to users when their account is impersonated. To view and update this email, navigate to Admin > Email > Email Management > Email Templates and select Data Privacy from the Category dropdown.
- Impersonation is only possible for the length of time configured on the Admin > Settings > Security > Impersonation page, which can be updated. In addition, you can give all Super Admins the ability to impersonate OR only give specific admins the right.
- The first time an authorized admin impersonates a user, they'll be required to agree to the Impersonation Terms and Conditions, which can be configured on the Admin > Settings > Security > Terms and Conditions page. From there, select Module from the dropdown to the right of the page title, select Impersonation TC, and then click Edit.
- All impersonation instances (including by Higher Logic staff) are logged in the Impersonation Log report. To view this report, navigate to the Admin > Pages > Reports page. On the Logins tab, click the View Report button for the Impersonation Log report.
There are two ways to impersonate:
- General impersonation - view your site using a member or non-member test account in order to get an idea of the state of the site, in general, from a non-Admin perspective.
- Specific impersonation - view your site as a known member in order to troubleshoot an issue that the member has reported.
IMPORTANT: Before impersonating any user, we recommend that you review the information in Manage User Data Privacy.
General impersonation
This method of impersonation allows you to view your site using a member or non-member test account. This is the better option if you're not troubleshooting a specific user's problem but want to just quickly view your site from the perspective of a general member or non-member.
To do so:
- In the Admin Toolbar, click Impersonate.
- Select Member or Non-Member.
You are now experiencing your site with the Member or Non-Member status.
An impersonation reminder displays at the top of the page.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to click Stop Impersonating to end the impersonation session.
Specific impersonation
If you want to impersonate a specific user, you have to access their profile. Then:
- Click the Impersonate button.
- Explain why you're impersonating the user, and then click Start Impersonation Session.
The impersonation session has an Admin-set duration. This is configurable on the Admin > Settings > Security > Impersonation page. See Manage User Data Privacy for more information.
NOTE: When impersonating a user, a black notification bar sticks to the top of the page as a reminder of the "impersonation" state. Because you're literally logged in as another user for the session, remember to stop impersonating when you're finished so that you don't accidentally perform actions under that user's account (e.g., posting to a Discussion, removing a subscription, deleting an email). To do so, click the Stop Impersonating button at the top or bottom of the page.
Related articles
The User Management section of the knowledge has the following articles that you should review before impersonating in your Higher Logic Thrive Community site.