Project Administration Tab

Project Administration Tab

Use the GForge Project Admin screen to maintain Project members, edit User Roles, view miscellaneous Project information, edit the Trove Categorization for a Project, and access other administrative tools.

Project Administration Overview

When you first register your Project, and it is approved, there are a small number of steps you should take to customize your Project. GForge automates all the hard processes, such as creating mailing lists, CVS and SVN trees, and controlling access to these. However, you must define which mailing lists, Forums, Trackers, Roles, and users you want to have in your Project using the admin screens.

Project Administration Process

This section describes how to configure your Project.

  1. Click the Admin tab and choose the Forum, Tracker, Documents, News, Files, CVS, Cruise Control, Trove Categorization, and Mailman links on the left navigation. These screens allow you to create additional information as required. Once these are all created, edit the roles for your Project.
  2. Click the Admin tab. Select each Role and configure the access levels. Each item in the role can be edited to set access levels to your Project. Make the required adjustments and then save the changes. Repeat for each role.
  3. Select Edit Observer Permissions to customize the settings for non-members of your Project. You can choose to make the entire Project private, or just pieces of it. If the entire Project is private, all of the pieces will be private as well.
  4. Next, add users to your Project and assign the desired Role to each user.
  5. Select Browse Project Join Requests to accept or reject users that desire to join your Project.
  6. Select Manage Project’s Parent to allow or delete associated Parent Projects.
  7. Note: Allow up to 30 minutes for role changes and mailing lists to be propagated to the server.

Maintaining Projects

To view the Project Admin screen:

  1. Click the Admin tab in your Project.


Figure 1‑1. Project Admin

Displaying Tabs in a Project

To view a tab that is not currently displayed:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Select the checkbox for the tabs that you desire to display.
  3. Discussion Forums Displays the Forum tab for this Project.
  4. Issue and Task Tracker Displays the Tracker tab for this Project.
  5. Document Manager Displays the Docs tab for this Project.
  6. News System Displays the News tab for this Project.
  7. File Release System Displays the Files tab for this Project.
  8. Mailman Lists Displays the Lists tab for this Project.
  9. Wiki Displays the Wiki tab for this Project.
  10. Cruise Control Displays the Cruise Control tab for this Project.
  11. Select the type of Source Code Management (SCM) tab to display:
  12. Perforce Perforce tab displays.
  13. VSS Skelton VSS (Visual SafeSource) tab displays.
  14. ClearCase Skeleton ClearCase tab displays.
  15. CVS CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) tab displays.
  16. Subversion SVN tab displays.
  17. None No Source Code Management tab displays for this Project.
  18. Click the Submit button.

Maintaining Project Members

This section details how to add, assign roles, and remove Project members. Project Members displays the list of all members in the Project.

Manually Adding a User to a Project

To manually add a user to a Project:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Manage Members and Roles link.
  3. Type the user name in the Full name field at the bottom of the user list.
  4. Select a Role for the new user in the list box.
  5. Click the Search Users link.
  6. Enter the user's name.
  7. Click the Search button.
  8. Navigate to the user and click the user’s name.
  9. Select a Role.
  10. Click the Add User button.


Full Name Unix User Name, User Name, and Login Name of the user. Click the User Name to view details.

Role The role the user is assigned in this Project.

Update Click to update a user’s Role.

Remove Removes the user from the Project.

Add User Adds a new user associated with the selected Role.

Editing a User’s Role

To edit existing user roles:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Manage Members and Roles link.
  3. Change the Role of the user.
  4. Click Update.

Removing a User from a Project

To remove a user from a Project:

  1. Click on the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Manage Members and Roles link.
  3. Click the Remove button next to the user to be removed.
  4. Note: The user will be immediately removed without any further confirmation.

Maintaining Project Observers

This section details how to edit Project Observers. Users not validated as a Project member and users not currently logged into GForge have Observer privileges.

Editing Observers

To change the privileges of users that are NOT members in the Project:

  1. Click on the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Edit Observer Permissions link.


  1. Select the desired attribute for each Section from the Settings drop-down list boxes.
  2. Click the Save changes button.

Section The Edit Observer page contains a list of several Project sections. The specific items vary depending upon sections defined for the Project.

Subsection Subsections related to the Project.

Setting Each item can have either a Public or Private attribute.

  • Note: Sections with the Public attribute can be seen by users that are not members of the Project. Sections marked Private are hidden.

Description Description of the Observers privileges.

Save changes Click to edit the Observer.

Adding, Editing, and Deleting Roles

Each user in a project can be assigned one or more roles, each which is customizable on a per-project basis. When the project is initially approved, the roles are copied from the template project that was chosen at registration time.

Groups and Roles If a user is a member of a group as defined in the site administration area, the user will inherit the highest role setting either from their own direct role assignments or any groups that they are a member of. For example, if a user is a member of a project and only has a single role with read/add access to a tracker, but is a member of a group that has admin access, the user will inherit the admin access from the group.

Multiple Roles If a user is assigned more than one role, the user will be given the greatest permission level from any of the roles. For example, if one roles has a read-only setting for a tracker, but a second role has an admin permission, the user will get the admin permission.

Hierarichical projects and roles. If a project has one or more subprojects, the users in a parent project will inherit much of the role information from parent projects and will have the highest permission level from any role in any parent project. The inheritance of roles only pertains to "Project-Wide" role settings like "Project Wide Tracker Admin" but does not apply to individual component role settings. For example, role settings for a specific tracker, like the Bug Tracker, will not be inherited in subprojects.

Adding a New Role

Add Role adds a custom role to the Role field.

  1. Click on the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Edit Roles link.


  1. Click the Add new Role button.
  2. Enter a Role Name.
  3. Select the Settings for this Role.
  4. Click the Save changes button.


Section Area of the Project the item is located, such as Tracker, Forum, Document manager.

Subsection Specific section, such as a specific bug tracker or help forum, or document folder in which to edit the permission.

Settings Permissions the role has for this area.

Description Description of the role setting.

Editing a Role

When changing a user’s Role for a Project, only the “default” Forums and Trackers update. When you add a Forum or Tracker, you must update each Role to set the Forum or Tracker. To edit an existing Role:

  1. Click on the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Edit Role link.

Edit Role

  • Note: The Edit Role page contains a list of several Project sections. The specific items vary depending upon sections defined for the Project. Each item has a drop-down list box displaying the current Setting for the item. The permitted settings vary by item.
  • Click the Edit link next to the role you desire to edit.
  • Select the desired value for each section listed.
  • Click the Save Changes button.

Deleting a Role

To delete a Role in the Project:

  1. Click on the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Edit Roles link.
  3. Click the Delete link next to the Role you desire to delete.


  1. Select the Confirm deletion checkbox.
  2. Click the Delete button.

Editing a Project Description

Edit Project Description allows you to edit the description of the current Project. To edit the Project description:

  1. Click on the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click Edit Project description on the Project summary page.


  1. Change the Description of the Project.
  2. Click the Update button to submit the changes to the GForge database.

Editing the Project Home Page

The Project Home Page appears at the bottom of the page. To edit the Project Description:

  1. Click on the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Edit project’s homepage link.


  1. Edit the Homepage.
  2. Click the Update button.

Editing Project Information

Edit Project Info allows you to edit the Project name and Homepage Uniform Resource Locator (URL). To edit the Project information:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Edit project Info link.
  3. Edit the Full Name the Project.
  4. Edit the Account name, which is the UNIX Project name entered when the Project was created.
  5. Edit the Homepage URL, which is the Uniform Resource Locator where the Homepage of this Project resides.
  6. Click the Save changes button.


Browse Project Join Requests

To view the users that desire to join a Project:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Browse Project Join Requests link.


Accepting a User Request to Join a Project

To view the requests from users that desire to join your Project:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Browse Project Join Requests link.
  3. Select the user's role(s) in the Action field drop-down list box.
  4. Click the Accept button next to the user’s name to allow them to join the Project.

Rejecting a User Who Requested to Join a Project

Rejecting a user that desires to join a Project:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Browse Project Join Requests link.
  3. Click the Reject button next to the user’s name to reject their request to join the Project.

Manage Project's Parent

You can associate each Project with a Parent Project to form a hierarchical association between Projects.

  • Note: Child Projects inherit users and permissions from Parent Projects all the way up the hierarchy. Each user inherits the maximum permission from any Parent Project. For example, if a user does not have SCM commit privileges in a Child Project, but does have them in a Parent Project, the user will have commit privileges in all Child Projects.

To view or delete a Project’s Parent if it's already set:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Manage Project's Parent link.
  3. Click the Remove link to remove this Project from the parent Project.


To associate a Project with a parent Project if it's not set:

  1. Select your Project.
  2. Click the Admin link.
  3. Click the Manage Project's Parent in the Admin Options frame.
  4. Click the Project with which you desire to become the Parent Project.


Plugin Settings Page

Plugin settings page shows a list of extra configuration choices on active project plugins


  • Forum
    All the available forums will be listed here with a link to forum settings form on it.
  • Tracker
    The trackers list will be displayed here with a link to settings form.
  • Document Manager
    Show Associations Tab: When checked this option will show a tab containing a list of those items that has associations with current documment; in document edit form.
    Show Tag Tabs: When selected a tab with a list of document associated tags will be shown at document edit form.
  • File Release
    Show Associations Tab: Check this option to get a tab showing a list of items associated with current release, at release edit form.
    Show Tag Tabs: Check this option to get a tab showing a list of tags related with this relase at release edit form.
  • Wiki
    Show Associations Tab: Check this option to get a tab showing all asociated items for this wiki page, at wiki page edit form.
    Show Tag Tabs: Check this option to get a tab showin all the tags related to this wiki page, at wiki page edit form.
    Use HTML based Wiki: When selected this option will parse wiki content as HTML formatted text, also wiki page editor will use a text editor with HTML format features.
    Use Text based Wiki: Check this option to parse wiki as wiki tag formatted text. The page contents will be edited in a plain text editor and format will be set with stander wiki tags.

Trove Categorization

Click this command to view the Edit Trove Categorization page. The Project Tree (Trove Tree Map) is a Project classification type system so Projects can be easily located by different criteria. By default, this includes Development Status, Environment, Intended Audience, License, Natural Language, Operating System, Programming Language, and Topic. Other Project Types can be setup by the Site Administrator.

  • Note: Projects should be categorized in the most specific locations available in the Trove map. Simultaneous categorization in a specific category AND a parent category results in only the more specific categorization being accepted.
  • Note: Changes to Trove categorization may not be updated in the Project tree immediately. An intensive daily process runs which re-calculates numbers of Projects in the tree.

To categorize your Project using the Trove map:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Project Admin Trove Categorization button in the left menu bar.
  3. Select your options from the drop-down list boxes.
  4. Click the Submit button.


Development Status Current status of your Project.

License Select a License for your software. If you selected Other/Proprietary License, provide an explanation along with a description of your license.

  • Note: Other licenses may not be approved and it may take additional time to make a decision for such Projects. All licenses must be compatible with the Open Source definition.

Operating System Operating system for which your Project is created.

Spoken Language Language for which your Project is created.

Programming Language Programming language in which your Project is written.

Topic Basic topic about your Project.

Intended Audience Audience your Project is intended.

Submit Submits your Project for approval.

Project Snapshots

The project administrator can request that a snapshot be made of the project at any particular point. This snapshot request is saved to the database and a daily process runs which dumps the data, file attachments and other project information to a XML and filesystem structure on the server.These snapshots can then be backed up or re-imported into another project or even another server. The site administrator can load the snapshots using an interface in the site admin area of GForge.

To Request a Snapshot:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Request Project Snapshot.
  3. Click the Confirm Snapshot Request checkbox.
  4. Click the Submit button.
  5. Contact your Site Administrator to load the snapshot into a blank project or move the snapshot to another server if desired.

Project Audit Trail

GForge maintains an audit trail of important events at the project level, such as adding or removing users or updating roles and deleting items from the database. You can browse this audit trail by using the interface in the project admin area.

To Request a Snapshot:

  1. Click the Admin tab for your Project.
  2. Click the Audit Trail link.