Add a New User

An administrator can create new accounts for archivists, guests, and other administrators. Learn about kinds of users.

Follow these steps to add a new user.

1 – Send email to the new user
Before creating a new user account, it's a good idea to first send an email message, like the one below, to the new user so they won't be surprised when they get an email from Omeka about their new account.
I have created a Digital Archive account for you. You will receive an email with a link
to activate the account. Click the link, and then on the User Activation screen, type a
password in the two password fields (it's a little confusing because the Create a Password
field looks like it's already filled in). After you click the Activate button on that
screen, you'll get another screen that will let you log in.
2 – Create the new account

To learn how to add a new user, follow the instructions in the users section of the Omeka Classic user manual.

The user will receive an email similar to the one below.

Welcome!

Your account for the Your Organization Name repository has been created.
Please click the following link to activate your account:

https://yourdomain.net/admin/users/activate?u=20961f80494906909852c967632e

Your Organization Name Administrator
3 – Follow up with the new user
Make contact with the new user to verify they received the email from Omeka and that they were able to activate their account and login. When they click the link in the email, they'll see a page like the one below.
Activation screen

After they click the Activate button, they'll see the login page as shown below.

Login screen

4 – Manual activation

If the user did not receive the email, or received it, but could not activate their account, you can manually active their account:

  • Go to the Omeka Browse Users page
  • Click the Edit link for the new account
  • Check the Activate box at the bottom of the Edit User page
  • On the Change Password tab, create a password
  • Verify that you can log in to the account as the new user
  • Send the login information to the new user

Two users with the same email

It is sometimes desirable for the same person to have two Digital Archive accounts, one as an archivist and another as an administrator. This allows them to normally be logged in as an archivist and only log in as an administrator when necessary. However, Omeka requires that each user have a unique email address. Here's how to work around this limitation.

  • Create a new user by following the instructions in the users section of the Omeka Classic user manual, but give the user a fake email address
  • You'll now have a second user, but their account won't be activated
  • Edit the new user:
    • Activate the new account by checking the Active checkbox
    • Go to the Change Password tab and give the new user a password

Kinds of users

The terminology for users in this Digital Archive documentation differs from Omeka terminology for user roles. The table below shows the differences.

Digital Archive term Omeka user role
Guest researcher
Archivist admin or contributor
Administrator super

Guest user

A user logged in as Guest will see non-public items and private fields in search results. To learn about public and non-public items, see the section on what gets searched.

Guest users do not see:

  • The gray menu bar that archivists and administrators see at the top of every page. Hiding the menu bar from guests prevents them from accessing administrative features.
  • Quick access links

A guest user account is useful for people who should be able to see all of the data in the collection, but not be able to make any change. Examples of guest users would be trusted researchers and members of your organization's board of trustees. You don't need to create a separate guest user account for each person. You can create just one guest account and let multiple people use it.