.. _user_management_overview:

Introduction to User Management
----------------------------------

.. index:: Feature;Feature User Management
.. index:: User Management (Feature)


.. _20.1.1|VOSS-551|EKB-4393:

Overview 
..........

VOSS Automate supports two types of users:

===================== =========================================================================
Administrators        * These users access the system to perform admin tasks
                      * Can be assigned to any hierarchy: Provider, Customer, or Site

End users             * These users are set up with services in the system
                      * Can be created at any level of the hierarchy, but can only become 
                        subscribers (and be assigned services) at the Site level. 
===================== =========================================================================


.. important::

    When upgrading from 19.X or earlier, please refer to the *VOSS-4-UC 21.1 Release Changes and Impact*
    PDF document on the Documentation Portal for details on model and workflow changes in 21.1 / 21.2. Customizations related to these
    changes may be affected.



How Users are Added to the System
...................................

Users may be added to VOSS Automate from these sources: 

* Synched in from LDAP, and promoted to a user (including flow through provisioning)
* Synched from CUCM (Cisco Unified Communications Manager)
* Synched from Azure (Microsoft users)
* Bulk loaded, via a Bulk loader template
* Manually created


.. note:: 
   
   Conflicts between users synched from different sources are handled according to the strategy described 
   in :ref:`managing_duplicate_usernames`. For information about user password management, depending on the source of the user, 
   see Password Management.


Users are typically associated with a site. You can create move filters to automatically assign users to sites once 
they are synchronized from LDAP or from CUCM. Bulk loaded and manually created users can be moved using filters or
by individually selecting users.

Cisco users associated with a site can be added to the CUCM that appears 
in the network device list (NDL) assigned to that site. When a Cisco user is added to CUCM, 
it becomes a subscriber, and can be provisioned with various collaboration services.

For details around how Microsoft users are synced in from Azure and then moved to the sites as 
subscribers, see :ref:`ms-subscribers`



User Authentication 
.....................

Authentication (auth) methods define how a user is authenticated when logging in 
to VOSS Automate, either Automatic, LDAP, SSO, or Local. 

If an identity provider (IdP) server is deployed at a hierarchy node above the site,
you can configure VOSS Automate to provide single sign-on (SSO) support for users created
or synched at that hierarchy node.

.. note:: 

   Typically, Microsoft users will not need to log in to VOSS Automate. Their default auth method is Automatic. When the default auth method is set to 
   LDAP, VOSS Automate checks with the LDAP server to verify the user's credentials. Once verified, the user is logged in to VOSS Automate. 






.. rubric:: Related Topics 

* :ref:`user-authentication-methods`
* :ref:`view_users`
* :ref:`create_a_user`
* :ref:`update-a-user`
* :ref:`user-management-scenarios`
* :ref:`user-sync-source`
* :ref:`user-field-mapping`
* :ref:`set_localization_language_at_hierarchy_node`