This Blackboard Building Block (B2) allows for System Administrators and Support Staff to impersonate other users in Blackboard. This project is derived from the original Impersonate B2, which was developed by USF.
This version of the B2 uses entitlements (AKA Permissions) to determine who can request to impersonate a user, and which users they are allowed to impersonate.
The latest Release can be downloaded from the Releases Tab, which includes the changes and improvements made to the version. It is installed just like a standard B2.
There are 2 entitlements that are included with the Building Block, each allows the user to which the entitlement is assigned to view the tool link in the Administrator Panel under 'Tools and Utilities', however they control whom the user is allowed to impersonate.
Restricts impersonations to users with an equal or lesser system role. For
example, a System Support user is allowed to impersonate an Instructor, but
not a System Administrator. This allows for security to be maintained.
This entitlement allows users with this permission to impersonate any user in the system, regardless of their relationship with the impersonated user. This can be useful if you are having issues completing impersonate requests, since it bypasses the relationship check that is run in conjunction with the Less than or Equal entitlement.
The B2 logs to the standard Blackboard logging location, in the impersonate.log
file, which can be downloaded from System Logs. The default log level is set to
INFO to include who impersonates a given user, and the current time. This
provides an audit log that can later be used in the event of an investigation.
Set the log level to WARN to only log errors that occur within the Impersonate B2.
Set the log level to INFO to log impersonates and errors that occur.
Set the log level to DEBUG if you are having problems complete an impersonate, as it logs if status checks pass or fail.