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Creating, Importing, and Managing Users
Creating, Importing, and Managing Users
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Written by Fegeins Louis
Updated over 4 months ago

Overview

Cloud Desktop relies on the use of Active Directory user accounts for accessing the remote desktop environment. itopia CAS offers several methods of managing these user accounts; from the CAS admin console, administrators can:

  • Create new Active Directory user accounts, either individually or by importing a spreadsheet

  • Import existing Active Directory user accounts into CAS, either individually or by importing a spreadsheet

  • Assign users to security groups

  • Edit basic user attributes*

  • Reset user passwords*

NOTE: management tasks marked with * are not available for Trusted AD deployments.

This article will walk through the management tasks available in the CAS admin console (cas.itopia.com).

Create New Users

When you create new users from the CAS console, CAS will create the corresponding user accounts in your Active Directory domain. You can create users individually in the CAS console or use a spreadsheet to bulk-create multiple users.

Creating a single user

Sign into CAS as a user with permissions to the Users module. Use the left-hand menu to navigate to Cloud Desktops > Users. Click the Create button.

  1. Provide information for the user. The required fields are:

    • First name

    • Last name

    • Username

  2. Assign the user to a Collection Pool.

  3. Optionally, you can also assign applications to the user and add them to security groups.NOTE: Only security groups that have been created in or imported into CAS can be specified.

  4. If you have provided an email address, CAS can automatically send a welcome email with instructions to reset their temporary password and access their Cloud Desktops. To enable this option, select Send user a welcome email.NOTE: Regardless of whether you enable this option, deployment administrators will receive an email with the username and password for each user.

  5. Click Create. CAS will provision the user within a few moments.

Creating multiple users

The CAS admin console allows you to import users from a spreadsheet (CSV or Microsoft Excel format) to create multiple users at once.

  1. Sign into CAS as a user with permissions to the Users module. Use the left-hand menu to navigate to Cloud Desktops > Users. Click the Add From button and select Spreadsheet.

  2. On the Add from Spreadsheet page, use the Download Template link to download a blank spreadsheet that contains the fields that can be populated.

  3. Open the template spreadsheet in a compatible application such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, populate the users you wish to create, and save the spreadsheet as a CSV (comma-separated value) file. Required fields are marked with an asterisk in the column name.

  4. Return to the Add from Spreadsheet screen. Click Upload File and browse to the location where you saved your updated file.

  5. Specify the Collection Pool to which to assign the users, and select the users that should be imported. To select all users, click the topmost checkbox.

  6. For users for whom you have provided an email address, CAS can automatically send a welcome email with instructions to reset their temporary password and access their Cloud Desktops. To enable this option, select Send user a welcome email.NOTE: Regardless of whether you enable this option, deployment administrators will receive an email with the username and password for each user.

  7. Click Add.

CAS will begin creating the user accounts. While the users are pending creation, their status icon will be orange; when they have been created, their status icon will be gray. When users are actively logged into the deployment, their status icon will be green.

When the creation is finished, you will receive an email at the email address specified for your administrator account. The email will contain the usernames and initial passwords for all users created from the spreadsheet.

Creating from the Discovery catalog

Another method of importing users is the Discovery tool, which collects details of each user that ran the PC Discovery agent and stores them in your organization's Catalog. You can then create user accounts from that Catalog data.

Import Existing Users

If you have existing user accounts in your Active Directory, you can import them into CAS to allow them to be assigned to Cloud Desktops. As with creating new accounts, you can import users individually or by using a spreadsheet to bulk-import.

Importing individual users

  1. Sign into CAS as a user with permissions to the Users module. Use the left-hand menu to navigate to Cloud Desktops > Users. Click the Add From button and select Active Directory.

  2. In the Select from Active Directory section, you can specify whether to provide several filtering options to limit the users that are returned in your search query:

    • Local Domain or Trusted Domain: If you have Trusted AD configured in your deployment, you will see the option to import from the local domain (where CAS is deployed) or your trusted domain

    • Organizational Unit: You may either paste the distinguished name (DN) of an organizational unit or click Browse to load a list of the OUs in your Active Directory

    • Group Membership: Provide the name of an Active Directory group to only display members of that group

    • Custom LDAP Filter: To provide a complex query, use LDAP syntax to define a custom filter. Information about LDAP query syntax is available from Microsoft.

  3. Click Search to retrieve your AD users. If you do not provide any filters, CAS will query your entire Active Directory and return all users; this may take a long time depending on the size of your domain.

  4. CAS will list any users that do not already exist in CAS, either previously imported or created directly in CAS. Use the search box to filter for specific users, or select listed users by selecting their corresponding checkbox.NOTE: In larger AD domains (1000+ user objects), CAS may only return a subset of users on the initial search.

  5. From the dropdown menu, select the RD Collection to which to assign the imported users.

  6. Click Add to import the users into CAS.

  7. The imported users will appear in the CAS console after a few moments.

Importing multiple users via spreadsheet

  1. Sign into CAS as a user with permissions to the Users module. Use the left-hand menu to navigate to Cloud Desktops > Users. Click the Import From button and select Active Directory.

  2. Use the Download Template link to download a blank spreadsheet that contains the fields that need to be populated.

  3. Open the template spreadsheet in a compatible application such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, populate the users you wish to import, and save the spreadsheet as a CSV (comma-separated value) file.

  4. Return to the Import from Active Directory screen. Click Upload File and browse to the location where you saved your updated file.

  5. From the dropdown menu, select the RD Collection to which to assign the imported users. Click Add to import the users into CAS.

  6. The imported users will appear in the CAS console after a few moments.

Importing multiple users via group membership

When you import an existing Active Directory group into CAS, CAS also imports the members of that group. This is performed as a one-time import; that is, if users are added to the AD group after the group has been imported, those will not be imported into CAS.

Managing Users

Users that have been created in CAS (or imported from Active Directory) can be managed directly from the CAS admin console. You can perform basic administrative tasks such as changing names and contact information, enabling or disabling accounts, unlocking accounts, and resetting passwords. You can also add or remove users from security groups that were created in CAS (or imported in from Active Directory).

NOTE: In a Trusted AD deployment, CAS cannot perform any actions on users imported from the trusted domain. These users must be managed directly within the trusted domain, and changes may not be reflected in the CAS console.

Individual User Management

From the main screen of the Users module, click on the user you wish to manage; do not click the checkbox as that will select the user, but rather click anywhere else in the row.

On the User Details screen, you have several options:

  • Edit - Change the user's name, contact information, password and account expiration, application assignment, or group membership. Note that you cannot change the username once a user has been created.

  • Reset Password - Manually set a new password for the user

  • Log Off - If the user has an active Cloud Desktop session in the deployment, you can force them to log off.

  • Unlock - Unlock the user's Active Directory account if it is locked

  • Enable - Enable the user's Active Directory account if it is disabled

  • Disable - Disable the user's Active Directory account if it is enabled

  • Delete - Delete the user's Active Directory account

  • Reassign - If the user is assigned to a Dedicated Collection Pool, this option moves the user to a new Session Host VM (see below for more information)

Bulk Management

From the main screen of the Users module, you can multi-select user accounts and perform the following tasks from the menu bar:

  • Enable - Enable the AD user accounts if they are disabled

  • Disable - Disable the AD user accounts if they are enabled

  • Delete - Delete the AD user accounts

Reassigning Users to a new Dedicated Desktop

Users that are added to a Dedicated Collection Pool or Windows 10 Dedicated Desktop Collection Pool are permanently assigned to a single Session Host VM. If the Session Host encounters issues or becomes corrupted, the user can be reassigned to a fresh Dedicated Host. When an administrator chooses to reassign a user to a new Session Host, they have the option to delete the old Session Host or to add it back to the Unassigned Hosts list for the Collection Pool.

You can reassign a user from their Users Details page.

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