institution requires confirmation even when checkbox unchecked

[Stacey Walker]

Unchecking the 'Confirm Registration' checkbox in institution configuration doesn't work and users still have to wait for membership to be confirmed by an administrator.

Email notifications to administrators about this request for confirmation are also sent and perhaps this should be a configurable element itself and different text for if a user has joined versus if they've requested membership.

The page on the Users 'Groups-> Institutions' where they can choose institutions to join/request also doesn't display the two types of membership options separately.

Edit: the same issue appears on the registration page however the form at least identifies which institutions are supposed to be requested and which aren't. Once the new account is confirmed though the 'Groups -> Institutions' page still displays these as awaiting confirmation.

[Aaron Wells (u-aaronw)]

Thanks for the bug report, Stacy. What version of Mahara is this in?

Cheers,
Aaron

[Stacey Walker (stacey)]

We found it in 1.6.3

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hi Stacey,

There are two ways of registering for an institution.

1) Registration allowed: The admin needs to confirm the membership for a new user, but no matter the decision, the account is still created. If the admin doesn't approve institution membership, the account is created in "No institution".

2) Confirm registration ("Registration allowed" needs to be clicked"): The user account on Mahara is only created when the admin of the institution approves the membership request. Thus, the account is created in the institution.

See the manual at http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.6/administration/institutions.html#add-an-institution

The message to the new user for 1) could be clearer stating that the account was created but that institution membership is still pending.

[Stacey Walker (stacey)]

Hi Kristina,

I see. It seems that perhaps this is just a confusing setup for both administrators and users who are registering as it's not entirely clear that the 'confirm registration' checkbox behaves differently for 'no institution' and normal institutions.

- With the setting unchecked for 'No institution' the user is registered on the system without a problem and becomes a member of that institution automatically - with no request and approval process for institutional membership happening. It appears in the institution list for admins, even though this that funny institution that isn't actually one at all, and it even still says that registration must be approved by an 'institutional administrator' even though none can actually be assigned to it specifically.

- For any other institution when that setting is unchecked the user is correctly registering on the system without approval but still 'requesting membership' of the institution; behind the scenes and without being informed this is what they're doing. The administrator may have expected the same behaviour as 'no institution' and then they are required to run through the approval process still.

As you mention perhaps at least the message for the user on registration could be clearer as 'approval required' doesn't really indicate that there are two separate processes going on and for which part that actually is. The user registering could, based on the lack of other information, believe that choosing an institution that doesn't require approval will place them directly into that.

Stacey

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hi Stacey,

"No institution" isn't really an institution and the administrator is the site administrator.

What needs to be tested now on your patch to see what you have changed?

[Aaron Wells (u-aaronw)]

Hi all,

I agree with Stacey that the documentation for this feature could be improved. In particular, I was confused by the term "registration", which in this context could be taken to mean "signing up for a new user account" or "joining an institution". It's also confusing because the "Registration allowed" checkbox affects registration in both senses, while the "Confirm registration" checkbox only affects the creation of new user accounts.

Also, the documentation for the "Registration allowed" checkbox is inaccurate on the "No institution" screen, because it says that unticking it will allow existing users to request or leave that institution. But in fact, "No institution" is never available for request or for leaving on the "Groups->Institution Membership" screen like other institutions.

However, contrary to what Stacey said, I found that the "Confirm registration" checkbox behaves exactly the same for "No institution" versus normal institutions. I tested it on master.dev.mahara.org (which is 1.7rc1) and found that it was like this:

No institution:
"confirm" ticked: New user account is not created until membership in "no institution" is approved by a site admin
"confirm" unticked: New user account is created immediately (as soon as they confirm their email address), with "no institution"

Real institution:
"confirm" ticked: New user account is not created until membership in institution is approved by a site admin or institution admin
"confirm" unticked: New user account is created immediately (as soon as they confirm their email address), and the user becomes a member of the institution right away

Cheers,
Aaron

[Aaron Wells (u-aaronw)]

PS there's a patch for this bug, although I'm not sure what change it's implementing: https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2059/

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Robert, Aaron and I discussed it and the behavior is correct. However, we should make different changes like changing "No institution" so that it becomes more apparent that it is the site and not another institution. I will create a new tracker item for that.