Manage Guest Users

Applies To: Wi-Fi Cloud-managed Access Points (AP125, AP225W, AP325, AP327X, AP420)

You can create guest user accounts on your portal and provide these details to guest users who want to access the Internet through your Wi-Fi network. You can also allow guest users to register themselves, and optionally, set their own password. This is called self-registration. For information on enabling self-registration, see Guestbook Self-Registration.

Create Guest Users

To create a guest user account:

  1. Select Portals.
  2. Click the portal name to configure the portal settings.
  3. Click the Plug-in Configuration tab.
  4. Click the Guestbook icon.
  1. Click the View Guest Users link.
  2. In the Users tab, click New User.
  3. Provide the user account details:
  • Username — Name of the guest user account. This is generated randomly or you can specify a user name.
  • Password — Password for the guest user account. This can be generated randomly. Click Random to generate a random password. or type a specific password.
  • Valid From/To — Date and time when the guest user account expires. The guest will not be able to use the account beyond this period. Click the calendar icon and the clock icon to select the validity date and time.
  • Email — The email address of the guest user to which the user account information will be sent. The email service must be configured on the account in the Analyze service.
  • Device Limit — The maximum number of devices through which a guest user can simultaneously log in with a single user account. The device limit can be set at the Guestbook plug-in level, guest batch level, and the guest user level. If all or two of these device limits are set, the device limit set at the user level has the highest priority, followed by the device limit at the guest batch level and the guestbook plug-in level.
  • Login Count Limit — Enforce the number of times a self-registered guest user can log in with a specific set of credentials within the account validity period.
  • SSID Name and Key
  1. Provide the Quality of Service Settings for the portal.
  • Login Timeout — The time period, in the format hours: minutes, after which the guest user session for the plug-in expires. The guest user must re-authenticate with login credentials to continue using the Wi-Fi service. A value of zero indicates that the user session does not timeout and the user must explicitly log out from the portal. A non-zero timeout configured on the plug-in takes precedence over the timeout configured on the portal.
  • Blackout Time — The time period in minutes during which a user cannot log in to the portal after the last successful login has timed out. A value of zero indicates no blackout time. The blackout time, including zero value, configured on the plug-in takes precedence over the blackout time configured on the portal.
  • Max Download Bandwidth — The maximum download bandwidth, in Kbps, for the guest user.
  • Min Download Bandwidth — The minimum download bandwidth, in Kbps, for the guest user.
  1. Provide the User Profile information.

There are two check boxes available for the available fields. Select the Display check box for the fields to display and select the Mandatory check box if you want to make the field mandatory.

  • First name — First name of the guest user. If this is not provided and there is a mention of the variable first_name in the email content, a blank value is seen in the email.
  • Last name — Last name of the guest user. If this is not provided and there is a mention of the variable last_name in the email content, a blank value is seen in the email.
  • Company — Company name of the guest user
  • Phone: Phone number of the guest user
  • Address — Postal address of the guest user
  • Host — Name of the guest
  • Notes — Notes that you might want to add for this user profile.
  1. Click Save.
  2. To add the user and send the guest user account details through email, click Save and Email.

The guest user is created and the guest user account details are sent to the configured guest book user.

Delete Guest Users

You can delete guest user accounts from your guestbook for the portal when they are no longer required.

To delete guest user accounts:

  1. Select Portals.
  2. Click the portal name for which you want to configure the Guestbook plug-in.
  3. Click the Plug-in Configuration tab.
  4. Click the Guestbook icon.
  5. Click the View Guest Users link.
  6. In the Users tab, select the guest user accounts that you want to delete.
  7. Select Delete User(s) from the More list.

The guest user accounts are deleted from the guestbook.

You can also delete individual guest user accounts from the Guestbook page of the portal.

Import Guest Users

You can import guest user accounts from a CSV file to your portal.

If any of the fields have been specified as mandatory fields in Portals > Guestbook > Configuration, the respective values for these fields must be present for the data to import correctly from the CSV file.

We recommend that you first export the guest users list to a CSV file so that you know the required fields. Next, import the file after you edit the users. For more information, see Export Guest Users.

To import guest user accounts:

  1. Select Portals.
  2. Click the portal name for which you want to configure the Guestbook plug-in.
  3. Click the Plug-in Configuration tab.
  4. Click the Guestbook icon.

The Guestbook plug-in configuration details appear. The Guestbook icon is available only if you selected the Guestbook plug-in when you created the portal. If the Guestbook icon does not appear, you must first edit the portal to include the Guestbook plug-in.

  1. Click the View Guest Users link.
  2. In the Users tab, select Import User(s) from the More list.
  3. Browse and select the required CSV file.
  4. Click Import.

To import the users and send an email with the account information to the respective users, click Import and Email Users.

The guest user accounts from the CSV file are added to the guestbook of the portal.

Export Guest Users

You can export one or more guest user accounts in your portal to a CSV file.

To export guest user accounts:

  1. Select Portals.
  2. Click the portal name for which you want to configure the Guestbook plug-in.
  3. Click the Plug-in Configuration tab.
  4. Click the Guestbook icon.

The Guestbook plug-in configuration details appear. The Guestbook icon is available only if you selected the Guestbook plug-in when you created the portal. If the Guestbook icon does not appear, you must first edit the portal to include the Guestbook plug-in.

  1. Click the View Guest Users link. If you want to export only specific user accounts, then you must first select the user accounts.
  2. In the Users tab, select Export Selected User(s) or Export All Users from the More list.

The guest user accounts are exported to a CSV file, users.csv, and downloaded to your computer device.