Users and Sessions

Management of users and sessions for iSee is via the iSee Management Portal. There are two portals available, one for organisations on the general iSee intance, the other for those using iSee with the Qld Department of Education who run an isolated instance of iSee.


Using the Management Portal

Introduction to using the iSee Management Portal

Using the Management Portal requires an active SessionHost or Admin account provided by your organisation.

Qld and NSW DoE staff have SessionHost access automatically created for them the first time they sign in using their department credentials.

SessionHost Users can:

  • Log into the Management Portal
  • Create new user accounts
  • Create a new iSee session with a selected 3D environment
  • Enrol or invite users into their sessions with a specific session user role
  • Add or remove other SessionHosts to their sessions
  • Change the 'Active' status of a session
  • Generate usage reports

SessionHosts Users cannot:

  • Change user passwords
  • View, access or edit other sessions unless they have been added as a Host to the session

The Management Portal Home Screen

 

  • The 'Home Screen' appears as soon as you log into the management portal or click the 'Home' (house) icon in the left hand panel
  • It provides a list of the sessions you have administrative access to
  • The coloured indicators show if a session is currently open to users
  • The blue session name is clickable to edit, delete or clone the session
  • Click on the pen symbol to change the 'Active' status of the session

Overview of setting up a class or event

Creating users

 

  • To add users to an Session they must first have an iSee account. This account only needs to be created once, so if they have accessed iSee with your organisation before they will already have an account
  • You can add individual users using a pop-up window or batch upload students by populating a sheet

Batch upload mulitple new users

  1. Create an Excel spreadsheet with Usernames and Email addresses (for Qld DoE use MISID and department email)
  2. Sign into the iSee Management Portal and choose the 'Users' tab
  3. Select the 'Upload Users' option at the bottom right

This will launch the 'Upload Users' table

  4. Copy your user data from your Excel sheet into the 'Upload Users' table

For Qld DoE account holders users it is only necessary to fill in the first three columns with the red headings (use 'All registrations - Master' as the Home Organisation).

For other users set:

  • 'Pre-Registration' = 'False' (this sends an email to the user with a link to set their password)
  • 'Is Active' = 'True' (this allows them to log into the iSee client and access assigned sessions)
  • 'First Name' = first name
  • 'Last Name' = last name
  • 'iSee Display Name' = whatever you want to be on their avatar

Click the 'Upload' button to batch submit your users - a report will let you know that the users have been created, if there were any users with existing accounts or if there were any issues with creating the users.

Create individual new users

  1. Sign into the iSee Management Portal and choose the 'Users' tab
  2. Select the '+ Create New User' option at the bottom right

This will launch the 'Create User' pop-up

  3. For users not covered by single sign on set:

  • 'Pre-Registration' = off
  • 'Set as Active' = on
  • 'Home Organisation' = ('All Registrations - Master' for Qld DoE)
  • In stage 3 of the form 'Enrolments' add the user to the session of interest if the session already exists
  • The user will be searchable in the 'User List' when successfully created

Creating sessions

 

  • Create sessions for your classes or events
  • You can choose the 3D map that suits for class or event for each session

Creating an individual session

  1. In the Management Portal select the 'Sessions' tab (the clock symbol)
  2. Select the blue '+' button on the right of the page to add a new session

 

    3. Select the Organisation from the drop down menu:

  • Qld DoE Schools - search for your region (CQ, DDSW, FNQ, MET, NC, NQ, SE) and select the most relevant.
  • Qld DoE Corporate - search for your branch

    4. Enter a title for the session - note that the title must be unique, so including something specific such as School, Class, Year and Term in the title is a good practice

    5. Select the 3D map for the session

Try to choose a map you think will be suitable for the number of users and support your social and pedagogical objectives.

Some maps have only one zone, while others have several. A good general map with lots of options and flexibility for teaching and learning is the 'student-on-country-campus'.

A list of the 3D maps and their uses can be found here.

You can change the 3D map at any time later by editing the session, although any 2D or 3D content in session will be lost when changing the map.

 

    6. Select the Start Date and End Date - note that the session is persistent, so set the end date some time after the end of your course or event. This can also be edited later to extend availability.

 

    7. If you are not going to access the session in the near future for testing, set the 'Is Active' toggle to off so that it isn't accessible to students.

    8. Click 'Next' to proceed

    9. Some 3D maps have signage board placeholders prebuilt into them for images to help theme or brand the space. These placeholders are labelled by zone and images can be uploaded to them from the 'Session Images' tab.

Note that there is a special zone called the 'Holodeck' where you can load a 360 image and later meet inside it with your participants.

If you image does not match the dimensions of the placeholder as listed, the portal will automatically resize the uploaded image for you.

It is not necessary to upload any images at this stage and the session can be edited later to add them. If an image has not been added to a placeholder then in the iSee world you will typically see a white board in the environment with the corresponding name of the placeholder.

    10. Click 'Next'

    11. If you have a small number of pre-existing users, groups or co-hosts you would like to add to the session at this point then you can do so - you can also do this later once the session is created (see - Adding users to sessions).

    12. Click 'Create Session' to create your session.

    13. You should now see your new session listed in the sessions tab.

    14. You can edit any session you have been made a SessionHost of at any time by clicking on the blue session name in the Sessions List. This opens the Session Panel for the session to allow for detailed management including -

General:

  • changing the session name
  • making the session active or inactive
  • changing the 3D map
  • extending the End Date
  • Cloning or Deleting the session

Images:

  • viewing existing placeholder images
  • adding or changing any placeholder images

Enrolments:

  • viewing the current users enroled in the session
  • adding or removing individual users for the session
  • batch uploading users into the session (these must have current iSee user accounts)
  • exporting user lists

Hosts:

  • viewing existing Hosts (SessionHosts)
  • adding or deleting individual Hosts
  • exporting the list of Hosts for the session

Session roles

  • Session roles are assigned when adding users to session or creating Meeting ID's - it is impossible to enter a session in iSee without an assigned role
  • To aid in setup there are a range of pre-defined 'Public' roles that are available across all organisations by default
  • It is also possible to create custom session roles if one of the public roles does not meet your requirements
  • Each roles defines a set of 'Activities' that the user has access to while in the session
  • Activity details of the most commonly used roles are in the table below

Role

Activity Guest Assembly Student Staff

Send and receive chat messages

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Teleport

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Visible and audible presence

Yes

Yes

Yes

Respond to traffic light feedback

Yes

Yes

Yes

Share files

Yes

Yes

Yes

Smartboards

Yes

Yes

3D models

Yes

Yes

Laser pointer

Yes

Yes

Megaphone

Yes

Yes

Raise hand

Yes

Yes

Host controls

Yes

For more in depth details of user roles including the Administrator creation of custom user roles click here 

Enrolling users in sessions

 

  • Each organisation may have thousands of live iSee sessions - but users can only see and access sessions they have specifically been give access to
  • To access a session a person must be either enrolled in the session by the SessionHost, be provided with a valid Meeting ID for the session, or have access via an LTI link with their organisations Learning Management System (LMS)
  • Enrolling users into a session via direct enrollment or a group is covered in this section, Meeting ID's and LMS links are covered in their own sections below
  • Adding someone to a session includes setting the 'Session Role' for the person which controls what features they have access to while in that session (a person can have different Session Roles in different sessions)
  • Access to the iSee application via session enrollment or Meeting ID is via iSeeHub, while an LMS link bypasses iSeeHub and launches the iSee application directly - in all cases a current version of iSee is required to be installed on the users machine for access to the iSee environment

Enrolling users into a session

  • To directly add users to a session you need to know both their username and the role with which you would like to add them
  • Once a user has been added to the session they can access the session whenever it is active
  • If you only have a small number of users to add to the session this can be done during the session creation process or later via the 'Users' tab

During session creation

Click the '+' beside 'Would you like to enrol any users in theis session?'

Via the 'Users' tab

Select the user -> choose the 'Sessions' tab in their User Panel and then the '+ Create New Enrolment' button

  • Adding larger numbers of users such as for a class or event is best done via the 'Session Panel' after the session has been created

Batch Upload via the 'Session Panel'

To use the 'Sessions' tab to add users to the session, select the 'Sessions' tab and then click on the name of the session to open the 'Session Panel'. Choose the 'Enrolments' tab and then either the '+ Create new enrolment' button to add a single user or the 'Upload Enrolments' button to batch upload a group of users.

Creating a Meeting ID for a session


Giving access via a Meeting ID

  • You can generate Meeting ID's to provide temporary access to sessions for people without enroling them in the session
  • Each Meeting ID is for a specific session for a specific time period and with a specfic user role
  • You can create a range different Meeting ID's for the same session that have different access times and roles
  • For the Qld DoE instance of iSee a person must still sign in with their user account to use a Meeting ID, while for the General iSee instance there is a 'Join as Guest' feature that allows for session access with a Meeting ID only
  • Meeting ID's are time resricted, but are also multi-use and can be passed on to others - this should be taken into account when deciding to use a Meeting ID as the method of access to the session

Creating the Meeting ID

  • Select the 'Invitations' tab from the left panel and the '+ Create Invitation' button to open the 'Create Invitation Panel'
  • Select the Session you would like to create the invitation for and assign the Session Role
  • Select the Timezone you are going to set the calendar invite to and then the start and finish times for the invitation - note that the end time for the invitation can be extended while the invitation is still valid but once the invitation has expired it is removed from the system and cannot be extended
  • Once the invitation is created it will be listed in your list of invitations with an assigned Meeting ID - copy this Meeting ID to whomever you would like to give temporary access to

Controlling access to persistent sessions

  • Once a session is created in the management portal it exists until it is deleted from the system
  • While the session exists it is possible to restrict access to it in the client by:
    • Setting the Active status to 'Inactive'
    • Setting the session 'End Date' to a date that has already past
    • Removing any users that are already enrolled in the session
    • Removing the session from any group access
    • Deleting any Invitations that have been created for the session (not reverseable)
  • Removing access to a session will not eject users that are actively in the 3D space - to do this they need to be ejected using the users tab in the iSee client diectly

Adding signage and holodeck images to sessions

To add or edit the signage board or holodeck 360 images for a session simply go to the sessions tab and select the session to open the Session Panel for the session.

Use either the 'Select File' button or drag and drop your .png or .jpg images to upload them to the singage boards. The images will be automatically resized to the dimensions listed under signage board name.

For best effect when uploading a Holosphere 360 image select an image that is greater than 4096 x 2048 pixels. This is a standard 'Equirectangular' image format that is produced by common 360 cameras.

It is also possible to create a Holosphere image from a panorama style smart phone image by creating an equirectangular canvas in a photoediting platform such as paint.net that has the same width as your panorama image and adding your panorama to the centre line of the canvas. Save as a .pgn or .jpg for use with iSee.

Once the images have been uploaded in the management portal they will appear in the 3D space next time users enter it - they do not live upload for those already in the 3D space and they will need to change zones and come back for the image to load.

Reporting

 

  • A new reporting function is due to be released to the portal in 2024
  • The legacy reporting system can be accessed by the link to the 'Admin Portal' at the bottom of the iSee Management Portal home screen