How to manage WebPlot groups

Since June 13th 2022, the WebPlot site has been upgraded to support print credits associated to user groups. This new feature had to be added following the end of the Shared ICT Services Centre (SISC, ex Computing Centre). The SISC was offering user accounts for all ULB and VUB users, including service (aka generic) accounts which were used by laboratories/services/departments as shared accounts to associate print credits. With the end of SISC, user authentication must be moved to the respective university systems: the CAS QuIdam for ULB and the MS ActiveDirectory for VUB. Those systems do not support service/generic accounts. However, the need to associate print credits for a group of users remained. The proposed alternative is therefore to rely on specific user groups exposed to WebPlot, allowing to associate print credits to those groups.
This page describes how to request and manage user groups, and how to manage print credits associated to a group for ULB and VUB users.

WebPlot groups for ULB users

Dedicated WebPlot groups are created and managed by the Cellule Web GroupManager solution, accessible only via the ULB VPN.
In preparation of the authentication switch from SISC LDAP to CAS QuIdam on June 13th 2022, owners of ULB service accounts were contacted to transfer their print credits to a dedicated GroupManager group.
Other laboratories/services/departments willing to create a new dedicated WebPlot group must contact the ULB support line via the email address support@ulb.ac.be. Please provide in the email body the following information :

  • The name of the group. It can be an existing group name or a completely new name.
  • The name(s) of the group manager(s), i.e. people that will be entitled to modify the group content.
  • The email addresses of the users to add in the group or the name of an existing group as source of users to fill the new WebPlot group.
  • Optionnaly, the list of email addresses to exclude from the WebPlot group, if filled from an existing group.

The support line will accompany you in any case to make sure that the group composition matches exactly your desiderata.

Example: the Earth Science laboratory wants to create a WebPlot group. Members of that lab are UserA, UserB, UserC, UserD.
UserA will be the group manager. That person will gain access to the GroupManager web interface with the tools to add or remove people from the WebPlot group.
The lab will create a new group called Earth Science Plots with all the members of the existing Earth Science Research Unit except UserD.
The Earth Science Plots group will therefore contains UserA, UserB and UserC.

Once a WebPlot group has been created, users belonging to that group and logging in to WebPlot will be able to select it when submitting a print request.
The print credit source selection is explained in details in the How to submit and track a print request documentation page.
It is possible to add print credits to a specific WebPlot group. The procedure is detailed in the How to recharge the print account for ULB users

WebPlot groups for VUB users

Dedicated WebPlot groups can be created on the VUB Microsoft ActiveDirectory. Laboratories/services/departments willing to create a dedicated WebPlot group must contact the VUB support line via the email address helpdesk@vub.be. Please provide in the email body the following information :

  • A name proposal for the group. Know that the final group name will contain the 'WEBPLOT' keyword.
  • The email address of the users to add in the group.

The support line will accompany you in any case to make sure that the group composition matches exactly your desiderata.

Example: the Earth Science laboratory wants to create a WebPlot group. Members of that lab are UserA, UserB, UserC, UserD.
The lab will request a new group EARTH-SCIENCE with all the UserA, UserB, UserC and UserD as members.
The final group name will be EARTH-SCIENCE-WEBPLOT (or similar).
The group members login on the WebPlot site will see the group EARTH-SCIENCE-WEBPLOT appearing in the print credits source selection.
The print credit source selection is explained in details in the How to submit and track a print request documentation page.
It is possible to add print credits to a specific WebPlot group. The procedure is detailed in the How to recharge the print account for VUB users