Managing a Group

If you manage a workspace for a course or a lab, find out what you can do for its members, such as booking or canceling on their behalf, and what only an administrator can change. The reservation and workspace system has four privilege tiers. A workspace manager works on the manager pages of the reservation app at reserve.dsmlp.ucsd.edu.

The Four Tiers¶

The workspace manager tier is also called group manager. The reservation app shows a manager's role as User; the manager pages in the sidebar are what set a manager apart.

See also: What a Workspace Is and What It Controls

Becoming a Manager¶

In a course workspace whose roster is loaded automatically, the course's owner, its TAs, and its graders all become workspace managers. In other workspaces an administrator appoints managers, or an existing manager does in a manager-curated workspace; see Roster Curation.

What a Manager May Do¶

A manager's sidebar in the reservation app adds Group Reservations, Group Members, and Reports, and, where they apply, GPU Loans and Group Rosters.

Viewing the Group's Reservations¶

Group Reservations lists every reservation in the workspaces the manager manages. Filter by Username (an exact match), GPU Class, Group, dates, and Status, then select Search. The SU column adds (grp: X) where the charge to the group pool differs from the member's, and (orig: X) where the member's charge has changed since booking, for example after a cancellation. A red × on a row cancels it, and an amber × waives a penalty. Under each row, Reserved gives the date and time the reservation was made. It is shown in the time zone of the viewer's browser, not in Pacific time like the rest of the app. So is the Created column on Group Members.

Booking on a Member's Behalf¶

Select New Reservation on Group Reservations, then choose the group, the member, the GPU class, the date, the start time, the duration in whole hours, and the number of GPUs.

A manager's booking also skips the booking horizon and the 48-hour member cap, and may fall up to 90 days before or after the workspace's active dates. The group pool, the workspace length cap, the class grants, and the GPU limits still apply. The row shows Submitted by and the manager's username.

Cancelling and Waiving¶

A manager can cancel any reservation in a managed workspace with the red × on Group Reservations. Cancelling a booking that is in progress deletes the member's running sessions, which record a ReservationCancelled event. Where a penalty applies, the dialog states it and offers Waive this penalty.

A penalty can also be waived afterwards, with the amber × on the cancelled reservation. This covers a no-show, the member's own late cancellation, and a teammate's cancellation in team mode. A manager's waiver clears the member's share of the penalty. The group pool's share, where the workspace has a pool, is cleared only by an administrator. Once only the pool's share remains, a manager sees no amber × on the reservation, and the app refuses a manager's waiver. See Having a Charge Waived.

GPU Loans¶

GPU Loans appears where the workspace's cohort allows loans. A loan moves part of one workspace's GPU limit for a class to another workspace in the same cohort, for a set of dates.

1. Under Propose a loan, choose the manager's own group and the other group.
2. Choose Offer to lend GPUs, or Request to borrow them.
3. Choose the GPU class, the number of GPUs, and the dates, and select Send proposal. The chart beside the form shows the effect on both groups.
4. The other group's manager approves or rejects the proposal.

Either side can withdraw a proposal that is awaiting approval, or cancel a loan in force. A loan's status is Awaiting approval, In force, Expired, Rejected, or Cancelled. A loan spans at most 120 days, and both groups need a GPU limit for the class on every day of it. Approval is refused while the lending group already holds more GPUs than the loan would leave it, and the refusal names the first such day. A loan changes GPU limits only. Reservations already made stand, and no budget changes.

Roster Curation¶

In a manager-curated workspace, Group Rosters lets a manager add existing accounts, remove members, and make a member a manager or a manager a member. Changes apply at once. It cannot create accounts. The rosters of course workspaces loaded automatically, and of workspaces curated by administrators, cannot be changed here.

Acting as a Member¶

Where an administrator has allowed it for a workspace, a manager can act as one of its members from Group Members, to see the reservation app as that member sees it. A password or email address cannot be changed while acting as another user. Select Exit Impersonation in the sidebar to return.

A Manager's Own Bookings¶

For a manager's own bookings, the member budget is not checked, the booking horizon and the 48-hour member cap are skipped, and the 90-day allowance around the active dates applies, as for booking on a member's behalf. The booking wizard selects at most 48 hours for everyone, so a longer booking is made with New Reservation on Group Reservations.

Extending a Member's Job¶

The reservation system accepts an Extend of a member's job from a workspace manager, but the manager pages have no Extend button. A manager allowed to act as members can Extend a job while acting as its owner; see Acting as a Member. Otherwise the member extends the job. See Extend.

Budgets and Limits Set by Administrators¶

A manager may not edit Service Unit budgets, either a member's or the workspace's own. Budgets are set administratively. See The Size of a Budget.

A manager may not edit group limits or quotas. The number of GPUs of each class that the workspace may hold at once is a platform-side setting. A manager may not change the workspace length cap either; see Reservation Length Caps.

A manager may request a change to any of these by ticket to parasol@ucsd.edu. The ticket states what the work is and the dates on which it matters. Administrative Requests covers requests. For quotas, see Requesting a Quota Increase.

Team Mode Cancellation Charges¶

When a teammate cancels another member's booking in team mode, the teammate cannot waive the penalty at the time of cancelling. A manager can waive it afterwards. See Cancelling and Waiving.

See also: Team Mode

What the Reports Cover¶

Reports shows four reports for a chosen date range of up to 60 days. The default range is today and the following 13 days.

Effective Limits¶

Quotas are date-aware. A course's share may be raised for exactly the span of a project deadline and revert automatically afterward. The limit in force in a given week is therefore not necessarily the one quoted at provisioning. The Effective GPU Limits by Group report shows the limit in force on each day. Date-Based Quota Changes covers date-ranged changes.

Cluster-Wide Scope¶

Three of the four reports display data for the whole cluster, not only the manager's own workspace.

Reading Cluster-Wide Figures¶

A total that includes every group on the cluster is not a total for one course. A peak drawn from the whole cluster is not evidence about one roster.

Other Groups' Data¶

Data about other groups in the reports warrants discretion. A manager does not circulate another department's booking pattern. A manager's own workspace is visible to others on the same terms. The reports are a planning tool and are not a public record.

Uses of the Reports¶

Evidence for a Limit Change¶

The Max Simultaneous Reservations by GPU Class and Reserved Hours by GPU Class reports supply the evidence a request to change a limit needs. Both are cluster-wide, so pair them with Effective GPU Limits by Group and the workspace's own reservations on Group Reservations. An example is a workspace that reached its ceiling every evening of week 7, with a project due in week 9. A survey of student deadlines a few weeks ahead allows cluster administrators to raise a quota in advance rather than discover the surge as it happens. Administrative Requests covers requests.

Moving Usage Off Peak¶

Where reserved hours cluster in the evenings, a manager can tell students that off-peak time is discounted and generally obtainable. Peak & Off-Peak Hours covers off-peak discounts.

Limitations of the Reports¶

The reports are not a bill. Service Units divide capacity and do not cost money. Workspace and Personal Quotas covers storage charges.

The reports are not a live availability view. What the cluster is holding at the current moment is shown on the status page. See The Status Page.

The reports are not controls. A manager's actions are those in What a Manager May Do. Every other change is administrative and is requested by ticket.

A report shows contention but does not resolve it. A course whose quota never fits its roster has a provisioning problem rather than a scheduling one. Report such a course to ITS during the term rather than after it. Teaching with Datahub and PARASOL covers provisioning for courses. Setting Up a Research Lab covers provisioning for labs.

Zero availability in a class is not an outage, and a cohort can be fully drawn while an individual group still has headroom on paper. See Cohorts.

Grader Account, Teams, and Technical Points of Contact¶

The shared grader account, teams, and the Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) designation are not privilege tiers.

Shared Grader Account¶

Each course receives one shared grader account for nbgrader and formgrader. It holds write permission on the workspace's public/ directory. An instructor's own account does not inherit its powers. Notebook Grading Workflow covers the shared grader account.

Teams¶

A team is a Unix group, not a role. launch.sh -G list prints the teams an account belongs to, and -G <teamid> launches with that team's data visible. Team membership changes which files are readable. It does not change what a member may do. Team Directories covers team storage.

See also: Team Mode

Technical Point of Contact¶

A TPOC is the person a course nominates to lead its customization work. The designation is not a permission. It determines whom ITS works with, not what the TPOC can do in the interface. Support & Technical Consultation covers consultation appointments open to TPOCs.

Report a problem with this page