Customize Forms for User Creation and Editing

You can customize how Active Directory objects are displayed in the Active Directory Web Interface, and configure forms for their creation, modification and renaming. For example, you may want Help Desk operators to be able to enter only Name, Department and Title fields, when creating new users in Active Directory. Or, you may want to enable regular users to view and modify only their personal and business information.

Adaxes Web Interface allows you to customize pages/forms used to display, create, edit, and rename Active Directory objects of any type (Users, Groups, Contacts, etc.). For each object type, you can configure, which fields will be shown on the form, how these fields will be grouped, options for group membership management, etc.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to customize forms for creating and editing Active Directory users.

On the computer, where the Web Interface is installed, start the Web Interface Customization tool.

Select the Web Interface that you want to configure in the Interface type drop-down list.

Activate the AD Management tab and click Customize Forms and Views.

In the Object types list (located on the left), select the type of Active Directory objects, for which you want to customize the view and forms. As we want to customize forms for User objects, select User.

To customize the page used to display User objects, activate the View tab.

Screenshot: Object View

To customize the form used to create new User objects, activate the Create tab.

Screenshot: Creation Form

To customize the form used to edit User objects, activate the Modify tab.

Screenshot: Modification Form

To customize the form used to rename User objects, activate the Rename tab. For example, you may want this form to allow users to modify some additional properties related to the object name (e.g. Display Name, First Name, Last Name, Logon Name).

Screenshot: Renaming Form

In the Web Interface, all fields presented on views and forms are grouped into sections. The form sections are displayed in the list above. The fields of the selected section are displayed in the list below.

To add or remove a field from a section:

• Select the section in the list above.
• To delete a field, select this field in the Section fields list, and click Delete.
• To add a new field, click the Add button located under the Section fields list.

To change the order of sections and fields, use Move Up and Move Down buttons.

If you want a section to be hidden by default, until the user clicks the Specify more information link, do the following:

• Select the section you need and click Edit.
• In the dialog that opens, select the Show this section only after the user clicked the Specify More Properties link check box.
• Click OK.

When this option is enabled, the section will be hidden by default, and users will need to click the Specify more information link to display this section.

View screenshot

To add a new section, do the following:

• Click the Add button located under the section list.
• Enter the name for the new section in the Section name edit box.
• Specify whether the new section must be hidden by default, until the user clicks the 'Specify more information' link.

Select what kind of data the section will contain:

AD object properties

If you want the new section to contain properties of the Active Directory object, do the following:

• Select the AD object properties option.
• Click OK.
• To add a property to the new section, click the Add button located under the Section fields list in the Forms and Views dialog.
• Select a property and click OK.

Group members

If you want the new section to display group members, do the following:

• Select the Group members option.
• Click OK.
• In the Forms and Views dialog, select the Allow adding/removing members check box in the Section Parameters group box to enable users to add or remove group members using the new section.

The Group members section is available for Group objects only.

AD object group membership

If you want the new section to display groups the object is a member of, do the following:

• Select the AD object group membership option.
• Click OK.
• In the Forms and Views dialog, to configure the new section to display only groups of a specific type, select the Show only the following groups option, and specify the desired group type and scope using the options below.
• To enable users to change group membership using the new section, select the Allow membership modification check box.

If you selected both Show only the following groups and Allow membership modification options, users will be able to add objects to groups of the specified type only. For example, if the section displays only Global Distribution groups, using this section, users will be able to add objects only to Global Distribution groups.

The AD object group membership section is available only for Users, Contacts, Groups, and Computers.

Additional properties

If you want the new section to enable users to specify any object property, even if this property is not available on the form, select the Additional properties option. In this case, the section will contain the Add property button that allows users to add any object property on the form.

You can also provide an optional description for the section. The description will appear in the section header.

If you want the form or view to display the links that allow users to quickly navigate to sections, select the Display section navigation links option.

It is recommended to select the Display section navigation links option, if there are many sections on the form.