[horde] New user preference setup - how to prompt for responses

[Kevin Myer]

Hello,

In our Horde installation, we have gone through all the preferences.  For
preferences where we know what the value should be, we've set a reasonable
default value.  In some cases, we lock those preferences, and in other cases,
we leave them visible.  This helps cut down on the myriad of options that might
be available to users and helps them focus on the ones that are relevant to our
environment (i.e we aren't using IMSP, so rather than confuse a user about what
it is, we lock it).

As we work toward an organization wide rollout, its become apparent that while
are default values are for the most part reasonable, there are a few items that
we either cannot setup by default, or where we have find widely varying
personal preferences.  So what I would like to be able to do is to take a list
of preference items and the very first time a user logs in, have them goto a
screen where they answer a few questions, which will in turn provide us with
the preference information we need.

For example, we'd like them to set a default security question, and answer, and
alternative email address.  Now we could tell them to login, go to Options, go
to Account Password, and enter the preferences and save them.  But we have no
guarantee that they will actually follow those directions and set the
information and eventually, we'll get a support request from them that they
forgot their password.  If instead we force them to provide answers to those
questions the first time they login, we've got the information we need and the
support request that comes in can generate a response that says "Go to the main
login screen and click the Reset Password link".  Those three questions are
three we'd like to be required.  And at some point, there probably would be a
few more prerefences that we've identified as things a user might like to set
the first time they login (like a theme, color categories, etc.)  Of course,
they might not know what those preferences do, so thats why we'd like to make
them optional.

My question is not whether this can be done.  Its what is the best framework to
accomplish this in?  Could this be setup as a one time maintenance task and
should it go through the maintenance service?  Or should it just trigger on a
"last_login" value of null and execute a custom scripte we write (which of
course won't work if you have "last_login" disabled)?  Would it be something
that would be of signficance enough to other sites that it warrant a Horde
preference, something like "initial_setup_prefs" which would be an array of the
Horde preference name, along with whether it was optional or required?

Kevin

-- 
Kevin M. Myer
Senior Systems Administrator
Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13  http://www.iu13.org
(717) 560-6140