Administrator Guide

Administrator Guide

Everything an admin or super_admin does in the web app: users, courses, classrooms, students, enrollment, the activity log, and the device and firmware pages. The device and firmware pages have their own pages: Device Management and Firmware Management and OTA.

Contents

• Signing in and sessions
• The admin menu
• Users
• Courses
• Classrooms
• Faculty
• Students
• Enrollment
• Activity log
• A first-day setup, end to end
• Permissions in detail

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Signing in and sessions

• Signing in: go to the server's address (e.g. https://impress.example.edu) and sign in.
• The first account, admin, is a super admin. Its password is IMPRESS_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD, or the random one printed once in the server log (Installation). Change it at once in Settings → Change password.
• Session lifetime: a session ends after 60 minutes without activity or 6 hours after sign-in, whichever comes first (configurable). The web app warns you 5 minutes before the hard limit. Pages that refresh themselves (live devices, deployments) don't count as activity, so a dashboard left open doesn't keep a session alive forever.
• Independent sessions: every sign-in is its own session. Signing out ends that one only.
• Settings: change your full name and password here.

The admin menu

Menu item	Page	For
Admin	dashboard	a greeting, live classroom nodes, user accounts and recent activity at a glance
Courses	course catalog	courses (code, name, credits, exam date and times)
Students	student registry	every student; create, edit, import
Classrooms	classes / sections	create, edit, import and export, activate, faculty
Modules	devices	gateways and hubs with health and diagnostics; student module inventory
Firmware	firmware registry	upload, approve, deploy, deployments
Users	user management	teachers and admins
Activity	activity log	who did what, and when
My Classes	as a teacher	the classes you teach

Users

Users → + New User:

Field	Rules
Username	3–64 characters, unique
Email	valid, unique
Password	at least 6 characters
Full Name
Role	teacher, admin, or super_admin

Who can do what:

• Creating users: an admin can create teachers. Granting admin or super_admin needs a super admin.
• Changing roles: nobody can change their own role. Promoting or demoting admin-level accounts needs a super admin.
• Deactivating: this stops sign-in at once and invalidates the user's open sessions. You can't deactivate yourself, and an admin can't deactivate a super admin.
• Resetting passwords: Reset pwd sets a new password. An admin can't reset a super admin's.
• Deleting: this is a soft delete (deactivation), so the user's history stays intact.

Import CSV creates many users at once. The columns are all required: username,email,password,full_name,role. Each row is checked on its own; valid rows are created, and the response lists invalid rows with the reason. Rows with role=admin need a super admin.

Courses

Courses → + New Course: Course Code (1–16, unique), Course Name, and optionally description, credits, department, exam date and exam start and end times.

A course is a catalog entry. Teaching happens in its sections, which are classes linked to the course (below).

Classrooms

A classroom in the web app is a class: one section of a course, or a free-standing class. Create one with Classrooms → + New (the form), or import many from CSV (CSV Imports).

Form field	Meaning
Classroom Name *	display name
Classroom Code *	the join code (code, 1–32 characters, unique). Teachers can join a class with it as co-faculty (API)
Course and Section	links the class to a course. A section label is unique within a course (409 if it already exists)
Semester and Year	Monsoon, Winter or Summer, and 2000–2100. Used for timetable clash checks
Class Start Date / End Date	the teaching period
Location	free text
Capacity	0–5000
Room Label (device code)	the classroom code (classroom_code, e.g. RM-201, unique): the physical room. A gateway registering with this code is linked to this class
Time slots (+ Add Time Slot)	day, start and end. Overlaps with the same teacher's or the same room's other classes are shown as warnings, never blocked

Rules to know:

1. New classes are inactive. Click Activate (on the class page, or with the activate button) when the class is in session. Gateways only auto-link to active classes, and live teaching assumes an active class.
2. The primary teacher is the first teacher you choose. The others become co-faculty.
3. Deleting a class deletes its quizzes (with questions and answers), polls (with votes), attendance, enrollments and co-faculty links, all in one transaction. Devices are kept: a gateway linked to it is simply unlinked. Only the primary teacher or an admin can delete a class.
4. Clash warnings: a clash is reported only when the time windows really overlap. That means the same term and year; otherwise overlapping date ranges; otherwise unknown dates, which count as overlapping. Back-to-back slots don't clash.

Export CSV downloads every course section in the import layout, ready to edit and re-import in update mode (CSV Imports).

Faculty

On a class page, Manage Faculty sets the teachers of that class. The first in the list becomes the primary teacher; the rest are co-faculty. Co-faculty have the same rights in the class as the primary teacher (quizzes, polls, results, roster), except deleting it.

A teacher can also join a class themselves with its join code, through the API (POST /api/classes/join {"code": "PHY101"}). The web app has no button for this yet. Joining adds them as co-faculty and never replaces the primary teacher.

Students

Students is the student registry: every student, whatever their classes.

+ New Student:

Field	Rules
Enrollment Number *	exactly 10 letters or digits; stored upper-case; unique
Student Name *	up to 128 characters
Email, Phone	a valid email; phone 7–15 characters (digits, spaces, + - ( ))
Program	up to 128 characters
Enrollment Year, Graduation Year	2000–2099; graduation ≥ enrollment

Import CSV needs exactly these seven columns, all required: roll_number,student_name,email,phone,program,enrollment_year,graduation_year. Valid rows are inserted. Invalid rows are listed with their row number and reason, and the import doesn't stop at the first error.

Removing a student can be done two ways:

• Delete is a soft delete: the student is hidden but kept.
• Hard delete is admin-only, and permanent:
  • the student, their enrollments and their attendance are removed;
  • their quiz answers and poll votes are kept but anonymised, so finished quizzes and polls keep their totals;
  • a student module tied to them stays in the inventory, without the enrollment number.

The student's page shows their classes and participation: quizzes answered, polls voted and attendance.

Enrollment

On a class page, 🎓 Students:

• + Enroll Student: search the student registry (by enrollment number or name) and enroll. A student is enrolled in a class at most once.
• ⬆ Import CSV: the student CSV above. It creates new students and enrolls them in this class. A row whose enrollment number already exists in the registry is reported as an error and not enrolled: enroll existing students with + Enroll Student.
• Unenroll: removes the student from this class only.

Students also appear in the inventory when their module joins the room's mesh (Device Management).

Activity log

Activity lists recent events: time, user (empty for device and system events), action, entity and details. Common actions:

Action	When
auth.login, auth.change_password	sign-ins, password changes
user.create, user.update, user.deactivate, user.reset_password	user management
class.create, class.activate, class.deactivate, class.delete, class.device_auto_linked, class.status_update	classes
quiz.create, quiz.start, quiz.stop, poll.create, poll.start, poll.end	teaching
student.connect, student.disconnect, student.csv_import	students and their modules
esp_device.online, esp_device.offline	device presence (only on a change)
module.access, module.key_reset, module.ota, module.ota.prompt, module.ota_result	device administration and OTA
firmware.upload and the approve, deprecate and deployment events	firmware

A first-day setup, end to end

1. Sign in as admin and change the password.
2. Users: create the teachers (and, as super admin, other admins).
3. Courses: create the catalog, or let the CSV import create courses.
4. Classrooms: import the sections from CSV, or create them in the form. Set each room's Room Label (e.g. RM-201).
5. Students: import the student CSV, then enroll students in classes from each class page, or import per class.
6. Devices: for each room, set up the gateway and hub (Firmware: Build and Flash). Check Modules: each gateway is online and linked to its room's class.
7. Activate the classes that are in session.
8. Test: run a one-question quiz in one room (Teacher Guide).

Permissions in detail

Action	Teacher	Admin	Super admin
See and run their own classes (and co-taught ones)	✓	✓ (all classes)	✓
Create and run quizzes and polls, see results	in their classes	✓	✓
Create classes	✓ (they become primary)	✓	✓
Delete a class	primary teacher only	✓	✓
Manage students, enroll	✓	✓	✓
Hard-delete a student	–	✓	✓
Courses, course and section CSV import	–	✓	✓
Users: create teachers	–	✓	✓
Users: grant or remove admin rights	–	–	✓
Modules, firmware, deployments, activity log	–	✓	✓
Student module inventory (all rooms)	own classes, through the live panel	✓	✓

The server enforces every one of these. A repository test calls every route without credentials to make sure none is left open (Security).