How do I disconnect stray WebCATS logins in order to free up user seats?
If a WebCATS user neglects to log out of WebCATS or has been idle for a long period of time, a database administrator may disconnect the user manually in order to free the user seat (i.e. license) for another user.
Before going into the steps for manually disconnecting user sessions, let's first look at the circumstances in which online sessions are automatically disconnected:
- When a user clicks the Log Out button, their session is disconnected and their seat is immediately freed up for another user. Ideally, every session should end this way.
- WebCATS automatically disconnects user sessions that have been idle for over an hour in view-only mode, as well as user sessions that have been idle for over eight hours when a record is open in edit mode. These automated disconnects should immediately free up the seats.
- OutreachSystems performs an across-the-board disconnect on all WebCATS users, whether they are currently active or inactive, at approximately 2:00am every morning. This disconnect frees up all seats and is necessary for resetting those sessions where the user probably closed the WebCATS browser without logging out.
Manual disconnects are necessary when you need to free up a user seat and don't want to wait for either the session to time out due to idleness or for the nightly across-the-board disconnect. To manually disconnect a user, select File|Logins from WinCATS. This opens the User Logins screen which displays the user names of each user currently logged into the WebCATS database, as shown in the next graphic.
To disconnect a user, highlight the user and click the Disconnect button.
Using Audit Reports to See How Users are Exiting WebCATS
If you'd like to see which users are logging off of WebCATS appropriately and which users are being automatically disconnected by WebCATS, run the Activity (by Session) audit report in WinCATS, available under Reports|Audit Reports. When sorted by user, this report displays all the instances a user logged in during the date range specified.
For every session listed, you should see a "Logged Off" as the last entry in the details area, as shown next. If the last entry is something other than "Logged Off," such as "Disconnected by" or "Abandoned session," the user did not properly log off.
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