How to add users to your Hipchat Data Center deployment

Hipchat Data Center gives you lots of different ways to add users from your organization to your Hipchat instance. Depending on your team size and network setup you might use one of the following methods.

Hipchat internal authentication

Hipchat Data Center includes an internal authentication system that, at minimum, contains the Owner user. You can also use it to create and manage user accounts for your team members. Use this system when you have a small team, or when your users are not already listed and managed in an external directory.

You can add people to the internal system by:

• Using the Hipchat web administrator interface
• Using the Hipchat API
• Sending an invitation link to one or more people

External authentication systems

Hipchat Data Center can connect to your external user directories or SAML identity provider so you don't have to manually create each user before they can log in. When you connect to an external system, user information is cached on the Hipchat instance (excluding passwords, which are never stored) to create the user's profile. You can enable synchronization for either method to make sure the user cache in Hipchat stays up to date with your organization's directory or identity provider.

You can add people from an external system by:

• Connecting to an external directory such as LDAP or Active Directory, including existing Crowd or Jira applications
• Connecting to a SAML 2.0 identity provider such as OneLogin, Okta, and Active Directory Federation Services

Changing people's roles 

Administrators can change a person's role to give them greater or fewer permissions on the Hipchat Data Center deployment (only the Owner user cannot be modified by administrators). To learn more, see Roles and permissions in Hipchat Data Center.

1. Browse to your server's fully-qualified domain name, and log in using your administrator credentials.
2. Click User management.
3. On the screen that appears, locate the user you want to modify, and click their name.
4. From the Role menu, select the role you want to give the user. 
5. Click Save.

Add or remove people from private rooms

Administrators can use the Hipchat Data Center admin UI to add or remove people from private rooms when necessary. (Normally, this would be the job of a room administrator, so only do this when a room admin isn't available!) 

1. Browse to your server's fully-qualified domain name, and log in using your administrator credentials.
2. Click Rooms.
3. On the screen that appears, locate the room you want to modify, and click its name.
4. Click the Permissions tab.
5. If you are adding....
   • an admin to the room, find the Room admins list at the top of the page and click Edit, then type the name of the person you want to add as an admin. 
   • adding someone to the room so they can chat, click Edit member list at the bottom of the page. In the list that appears, select the person or people who you want to add to the room. 
6. Click Save.

Internal authentication user management

Hipchat Data Center includes an internal user database, which cannot be removed and which contains, at minimum, the Owner user. If you choose not to use an external authentication source such as LDAP, ActiveDirectory, Crowd or SAML, then Hipchat Data Center administrators may need to respond to the following types of account management requests from users. 

Resend account activation email

Before a user can log in, they must confirm their email address by clicking the link sent to them in an email. If this email doesn't arrive, administrators can trigger a re-send of this email. 

1. Log in using your administrator credentials.
2. Click User management and locate the user who needs the activation email re-sent.
3. Click the resend email link in the Last Active column of the user table. 

Password resets

If you are using an external authentication system, such as LDAP, ActiveDirectory, Crowd or SAML, users cannot reset their passwords from Hipchat. Instead, they must change their passwords for the authentication system.

If the users are stored in the Hipchat internal authentication system, they can go to your Hipchat Data Center instance and use the forgot_password path (for example: hipchat.example.com/forgot_password) to trigger a password reset email.

Force password reset on next login

Administrators can force internal authentication users to reset their password the next time they log in. Use this option if a user's password is compromised, or to periodically force users to rotate passwords.

1. Browse to your server's fully-qualified domain name, and log in using your administrator credentials.
2. Click User management.
3. Locate the user, and click their name.
4. On the user's profile, click the box next to Require user to reset their password.
5. Click Save.