Introducing Persona, a Samvera User Management Add-on

Avalon Media System and Notch8 are proud to announce Persona, a user-management add-on for Samvera-based repositories. The module allows for a team of administrators who manage hosted systems to quickly create user credentials without relying on an outside authentication system (LDAP, Shibboleth, etc.).  Persona also allows those performing help desk tasks to view the system as those experiencing an issue see it, bypassing complicated communication exchanges and replicating the issue locally.  Developed with help desk staff and system administrators in mind, the Persona module solves many of the difficulties inherent in managing services for a diversity of organizations.  

Key features of the module include the ability to:

• Define a local login strategy for end users
• Securely log in as an administrator without logging in through an outside authentication system
• From a dashboard, add or delete users
• Assume the identity of any user, regardless of identity provider, via the “Become” troubleshooting feature if you are an administrator.

The Avalon team and Notch8 extracted and extended the functionality from work originally done in Hyku. Persona, released as an open-source gem, is now available as a component that can be used with Avalon, Hyrax, or other Samvera-based products.