OpenX Tips

When version 2.6 of the OpenX ad server was released, the OpenX Team introduced a whole new user and account management system.

The new system gives OpenX ad server administrators two important tools for managing who can log into an OpenX installation, and what a user can do once they have logged in: Users, and Accounts.

Users

OpenX allows every person who needs to log into an OpenX installation to have their own username and password. This means that you can do away with sharing one username and password — this is obviously better for security, makes life much easier if you need to remove a user’s access to the installation, and means that the information in the user log is much more useful!

If you’ve got multiple people logging into your OpenX ad server installation, and you’re still sharing a single username and password, now is the time to add some new users to your setup — more on how to do that below…

Accounts

In OpenX, there are four types of accounts:

• The Administrator account;
• Manager accounts;
• Advertiser accounts; and
• Website accounts.

For most OpenX ad server users, the two most important and widely used accounts are the Administrator account, and Manager accounts.

The Administrator account

An OpenX ad server installation has one, and only one, Administrator account. The Administrator account is the account that can do everything — if your user is linked to the Administrator account, then you can not only access the Configuration tab (and the Plugins tab, in OpenX 2.8) to manage the OpenX installation’s configuration settings, but you can also “act” as any Manager account as well, which allows you to manage all of the advertisers, campaigns, banners, websites and zones in the entire installation.

Working as the Administrator account

To “act” as the Administrator account, so that you can access the Administrator account specific tabs, simply use the Working as dropdown menu, and change to the Administrator account¹.

The "Working as" dropdown menu.

Trafficking as a Manager

As stated above, if your user is linked to the Administrator account, then you can act as any Manager account in an OpenX installation, allowing to you manage any advertiser, campaign, bannner, website and zone in an OpenX installation.

However, in order to carry out this management, you need to “act” as the appropriate Manager account. To do this, you can either select the appropriate Manager account from the Working as dropdown menu, or you can use the appropriate Switch to this account link on the Inventory tab.

Linking a user to the Administrator account

To link a new or existing user to the Administrator account, first of all, ensure that you are Working as the Administrator account yourself. Then go to Inventory > Admin Access.

Here, click on the Actions button, and select Add user. (This is true even if you simply want to link an existing user to the Administrator account.) Enter the username of the new or existing user you would like to link to the Administrator account, and click Add user.

If you have entered a new username, then you will be asked to enter the new user’s details — their password, name, email address and default OpenX UI language. Enter these details, and click Add user.

Creating a new user.

That’s it! The user will have been created (if required), and linked to the Administrator account.

Removing a user from the Administrator account

To remove a user from the Administrator account, first of all, ensure that you are Working as the Administrator account yourself. Then go to Inventory > Admin Access.

Here, simply locate the user that you would like to remove from the Administrator account, and click on the appropriate Remove link².

Manager accounts

In OpenX, a Manager account “owns” a complete set of advertisers, campaigns, banners, websites and zones. These sets are independent of one another — so, Manager accounts are a great way of dividing up a single OpenX installation, if you have a number of different groups of advertisers and websites.

Creating a new Manager account

To create a new Manager account, you will first of all need to be Working as the Administrator account. Then go to Inventory > Account Management.

Here, click on the Actions button, and select Add new account. Enter the name, contact name and email address for the new Manager account, and click Save Changes.

Creating a new Manager account.

Working as a Manager account

To “act” as a Manager account, simply use the Working as dropdown menu, and change to the appropriate Manager account. You will only see another Manager account in the dropdown menu if more than one Manager account exists in your OpenX installation, and your user is linked to more than one Manager account (or, your user is linked to the Administrator account, in which case you will automatically have access to all Manager accounts in your system).

Linking a user to a Manager account

To link a new or existing user to a Manager account, first of all, ensure that you are Working as the appropriate Manager account yourself. Then go to Inventory > User Access.

Here, the process of linking a new or existing user to the Manager account is the same as for the Administrator account, with one difference — there is an option to set a permission for the user, called “Allow this user to create new accounts.” This is a misleading permission name, as in fact, this permission allows the user to link new or existing users to the Manager account, and has nothing to do with creating new accounts³! If you want to ensure that the new or existing user you are linking to the Manager account does not have permission to link other new or existing users to the account, then disable the option before you link the user to the account.

Removing a user from a Manager account

To remove a user from a Manager account, first of all, ensure that you are Working as the appropriate Manager account yourself. Then go to Inventory > User Access.

As with removing a user from the Administrator account, simply locate the user that you would like to remove from the Manager account, and click on the appropriate Remove link.

1. Of course, the user you are logged in as will need to be linked to the Administrator account to be able to this! [↩]
2. If the user will not be linked to any accounts once they have been removed from the Administrator account, then the user will be deleted. OpenX will prompt you to ensure that you are happy to delete the user if this is the case. [↩]
3. You need your username to be linked to the Administrator account, and be Working as the Administrator account, to be able to create a new Manager account. [↩]