A user may report that they cannot log in to Collaborate.
This is different from the situation where a user is able to log in, but does not see or otherwise have access to a specific site.
A System Administrator should follow these steps to determine the cause of the problem and the appropriate solution.
While a System Administrator has many more tools at their disposal for resolving this situation, a Site Administrator can act as the first-line responder and gather information from the user.
Gather Information
Ask the user to provide the following three pieces of information:
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The email address they are entering on the login page. If the user has multiple corporate email addresses (like jsmith@acme.com and john.smith@acme.com), it is possible that the user was invited with one email address but is attempting to log in with the other.
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The name of the site to which they were invited.
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The response they see when they attempt to login.
Troubleshooting
Password Reset Message
If the user attempts (but fails) to login three times they will receive a message asking to reset their password:
This indicates the user has an active account that uses the email address that they provided. As such, there are two possible problems:
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The user is entering the wrong password, in which case the user's account has now been locked.
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The user's organisation is not active.
The user should try the password reset process to attempt to reset their password and unlock their account, which includes requesting a password reset email. If the user does not receive the password reset email, then Collaborate emails are likely being blocked by their spam filter.
If the user is able to reset their password, then the problem is solved.
If the user attempts to use the password reset process and, when they click on the link in the password reset email they are shown the regular login page:
instead of the page where they are asked to enter a new password:
then the problem is likely that the user's organisation is not active in the system. The System Administrator can confirm this from the Org admin page (access required) and make the organisation Active, if that is justified:
After this setting is changed, the user should try to reset their password again.
Invalid Login Message
If instead of the reset password message the user sees the "Invalid login" message when attempting to login:
the System Administrator should follow these steps to identify the problem.
Step 1: Determine whether the User has an Active Account with the Provided Email Address
The System Administrator should search for the user in the "User admin" page of the "System Admin" module (access required), and search using the email address provided by the user, making sure that the "Active" search Status filter is selected:
If there is a matching result, then the user has an active account with that email address. In this case, there are two possible issues:
- Most likely, the email domain of the user's email address is not active. Use the "Org admin" features (access required) to determine if this is the case and, if so, activate the domain:
- Or the user was added to a single site but no invitation was sent. In this case, when searching for the user there will not be a link under the "Reset password link" column:
Use the "Site List" link in the search results to find the site the user was invited to, then go to the "Users" admin page of that site and confirm that no invitation was sent to the user.
This also means the user should not be able to log in, unless and until the Site Administrator for that site chooses to invite the user.
One possibility is that the Site Administrator inadvertently failed to invite the user, but separately informed the user that they had access to the system and provided the user with the URL for Collaborate. In that case, the System Administrator should reach out to the Site Administrator and ask them to invite the user to the site, if appropriate.
Step 2: Determine Whether the User has an Account with a Different Email Address
If no match is found for the user using the search criteria above, attempt to search for the user by name, email domain or some other way, but keep the Status field set to "Active." If a match is found, compare the email address listed with the email address provided by the user. They should be different, which means the user was attempting to log in with the wrong email address.
In that case, ask the user to login using the email address shown in the user search result page. If the user prefers to use the email address they provided, the user can either change it from their profile page after they log in, or the System Administrator can access the user's profile page and change the user's email address there.
If no match is still found, search for the user but set the search Status to "Archived". If a match is found searching that way, then (a) the user is using the wrong email address and (b) the user's account was deactivated. In this case, first activate the user's account (if appropriate) by checking the box next to their name in the search results and selecting the Active button:
then take the steps noted above and either ask the user to login with the email address associated with their account or the System Administrator can change the user's email address to match the address the user entered.
In this case, the user will not be a member of any site and will have very limited access. The user should be added to a site, if appropriate.
Step 3: Determine Whether the User has an Archived Account with the Same Email Address
If no match has been found with the search Status set to "Archived", search for the user with the email address they are now using. If a match is found, then the user's account was deactivated. In that case, activate the user's account (if appropriate) by ticking the box next to their name and selecting the Active button. Then ask the user to attempt to log in again.
In this case, the user will not be a member of any site and should be added to a site, if appropriate.
Step 4: The User Does Not Have an Account
If, after proceeding through all of these steps, there is still no record found of the user, the most likely conclusion is that the user never had an account in the first place.
Ask the user to forward the email invitation they received to Collaborate. If an invitation can be found, then contact HighQ support to investigate the issue further, as the invitation implies that the user should have an account.
Otherwise, the Site Administrator for the relevant site should invite the user to that site (thereby creating an account for the user), only if the user should have access to that site.
