Re: Monitoring user working hours in microscopy core facility

Posted by TSwayne on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Monitoring-user-working-hours-in-microscopy-core-facility-tp7588749p7588752.html

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Hi Hanna,

I’m not sure there is a way that is both easy and foolproof.  But we have done ok using a combination of Windows logs and the microscope software (NIS Elements) log.

Like you, we have many users, so we have a single user account on each instrument.

We use the Windows Event Viewer to find out the times of logon and logoff. (I set up a filter for those event codes.)  We check each computer every couple of days when confirming usage hours.

To find out who came in at the time of interest, we search the computer for files modified at that time – we keep these organized by user and PI.

For cases when people don’t log off, or delete their image files, we look into the NIS Elements log.  We can search through it to find the path where someone saved their images, and also the imaging setup they used. This usually gives us enough info to pinpoint the culprit.

Fortunately, we don’t have many instances of abuse – more often, it’s a few late-night people overstaying their reservations.

For those cases, the Windows log is fast and effective.

We looked into card-swipe access, but it is prohibitively expensive at our institution, and we still would have a lot of administrative overhead, because we would need to work with Security to set up the access privileges.

Hope this helps,
Theresa


------------------------------------
Theresa Swayne, Ph.D.
Associate Research Scientist
Manager, Confocal and Specialized Microscopy Shared Resource<http://hiccc.columbia.edu/research/sharedresources/confocal>

Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
Columbia University Medical Center
1130 St. Nicholas Ave., Room 222A
New York, NY 10032
Phone: [phone]
[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>



From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]> on behalf of Hanna Sas Nowosielska <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]>
Date: Friday, September 28, 2018 at 11:52 AM
To: "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Monitoring user working hours in microscopy core facility

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Dear All,

In our microscopy core facility, we are trying to find a way to monitor
users working ours on our systems. This is particularly important for the
users working outside facility staff working hours. After talking to Zeiss
and Leica service, it seems that setting user accounts on Windows is hard
to do, especially with over 100 users. Thus, I would like to ask you about
your experience. How is this monitored in your core facilities? Is there
any easy way to do it?

Thanks,
Hanna
--
Hanna Sas-Nowosielska

Laboratory of Imaging Tissue Structure and Function
Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology
Warsaw, Poland