Logging In
To start Athenaeum, you will need an account and password.
The Account tells Athenaeum what privileges you have. The password is your secret access to that account.
The Standard Accounts
When starting Athenaeum or re-logging in, you will be prompted for an account and a password. The following accounts are available for use with Athenaeum:
| Account type | description |
|---|---|
| Library | the standard library administrator account (note that you can create your own accounts of type "library"). administrators can peform virtually all functions |
| Issue | an account restricted to issuing, returning, extending as well as search the calalogue |
| Guest | a search only account |
| web | a basic search only web account |
| authenticated web | a web account that can log into the web search templates (if installed and configured to allow so) and reserve, review, view issues and overdues |
Note that we do not provide generic default passwords, but rather, installation specific passwords.
So we will advise you of your initial passwords at the time of installation.
Passwords are case sensitive. Account names are not.
You may change passwords at any time for any account in the Maintenance tab of Admin.
Options Password
The options password allows you, as the administrator, to authorise overrides, for example in the case where a borrower has exceeded his/her borrowing limits but wants to borrow another item.
By default the options password is likely:
fred
Note: you should change this - it is just a starter password
Active/Open Directory
When hosting Athenaeum with your own FileMaker Server, you can configure FileMaker Server to authenticate against an external LDAP server or Open directory. See the FileMaker Server manual for details on this.
Then, you create appropriate groups and add users to those groups (with some versions of FileMaker, you can't add groups to groups). The groups that Athenaeum recognises are:
| Group | Description |
|---|---|
| lib_admin | administrators can peform virtually all functions |
| lib_student | an account for your library patrons so they can log in, reserve items, see their current issues and history on the web portal and manage their reserves |
| lib_issue | patrons in this group have privilege to issue and return items as well as perform all that lib_student can |
| lib_selfissue | a group that allows patrons to click the self issue button, if visible, log in, perform their issue(s) and then Athenaeum logs back out to a guest account upon completion. Note that this is not enabled (at the time of writing) in the web portal, as physical attendance is required in the library (this may change) |
| lib_guest | if you require logins for any interaction with Athenaeum, then you should add members to this group so they can search your library (only) |
Note: lib_student is the usual group to use, the others are for use under advisement.
The group(s) you create must be in the same domain as the FileMaker Server.
Finally, you must configure FileMaker Server to allow external authentication. In FileMaker Server 18, this is done by going to the admin console, clicking the Administration tab then External Authentication. Under Database Sign in, ensure you enable External Server Accounts.
