App with Accounts and Users - Devise user can't create additional users - ruby-on-rails-3.1

Question

Using Rails 3.1.3 with Devise 1.5.3. My app has accounts and users. Each account can have multiple users. A user can have one role, "user" or "account_admin". Devise signup routes to accounts#new. The account and an initial account_admin user are created simultaneously. Got this working as described here (although things have evolved some since then).
An account_admin signs should be able to create additional users in that account. That's where I'm running into trouble: instead of creating new users, it's just redirecting to the user_path (users#show) page with the message "You are already signed in." (user_path is my overridden after_sign_in_path.)
This article asks a similar question. The answer suggests a separate namespace for admins, but since admins are part of my regular app I don't think that applies.
I've defined a complete UsersController. According to the log, GET "/users/new" renders from my "UsersController#new". However POST "/users" is intercepted by Devise and rendered from "Devise::RegistrationsController#create".
config/routes.rb
devise_for :users
devise_scope :user do
get "signup", :to => "accounts#new"
get "signin", :to => "devise/sessions#new"
get "signout", :to => "devise/sessions#destroy"
end
resources :users
resources :accounts
app/controllers/users_controller.rb
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_filter :authenticate_user!
load_and_authorize_resource # CanCan
...
def new
# CanCan: #user = User.new
end
def create
# CanCan: #user = User.new(params[:user])
#user.skip_confirmation! # confirm immediately--don't require email confirmation
if #user.save
flash[:success] = "User added and activated."
redirect_to users_path # list of all users
else
render 'new'
end
end
...
end
I've tried overriding the Devise controller, thinking I could tell it to use my users#create action if the user is already signed in. The log tells me it is using my controller ("Processing by RegistrationsController#create as HTML"), but it doesn't seem to execute its code. I've commented out my custom actions and just left in the logger lines, but I don't get my logging messages. And in spite of super being commented out, the behavior doesn't change--it still redirects with "You are already signed in."
config/routes.rb
devise_for :users, :controllers => {:registrations => "registrations"}
app/controllers/registrations_controller.rb
class RegistrationsController < Devise::RegistrationsController
def new
logger.info "Custom RegistrationsController: new"
super
end
def create
logger.info "Custom RegistrationsController: create"
# super unless user_signed_in?
# render "users#create"
end
def update
super
end
end
What am I missing? How can I let the account_admin user create additional users?

Answer 1

The main issue is that Devise was intercepting the POST "/users" (and a few other routes). Found this workaround to allow my Users controller handle those routes: change the devise_for to skip registrations, then add back in the routes for which Devise normally defines aliases:
routes.rb
devise_for :users, :skip => [:registrations]
devise_scope :user do
get "signup", :to => "accounts#new"
get "signin", :to => "devise/sessions#new"
get "signout", :to => "devise/sessions#destroy"
get "cancel_user_registration", :to => "devise/registrations#cancel"
post "user_registration", :to => "users#create"
get "new_user_registration", :to => "accounts#new"
get "edit_user_registration", :to => "users#edit"
end
resources :users
resources :accounts
Never figured out why the Devise controller override wasn't working.
A user on this thread pointed out the devise_invitable gem which might be an interesting alternative.

Answer 2

This is how I ended up getting this to work with my setup (Devise tied to my User model -- no separate Editor/Admin model):
class UsermakersController < ApplicationController
before_action :authenticate_user!
def new
#user = User.new
end
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #user.save
format.html { redirect_to users_path, notice: 'User was successfully created.' }
format.json { render :show, status: :created, location: #user }
else
format.html { render users_path }
format.json { render json: #user.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
private
def user_params
userParams = params.require(:user).permit(:name, :email)
end
end
From here, when you want to add a new User as another User, simply call the Usermakers#new url in your form, e.g., I have this at the bottom of my Users index page:
<%= link_to 'Add User', new_usermaker_path, id: 'new_user_link' %>
And the Usermakers form looks like:
= simple_form_for #user, url: usermakers_path, html: {multipart: true} do |f|
=f.error_notification errors: true
= f.input :name
= f.input :email
%p
= f.button :submit, 'Create User', class: 'button'
Of course, you'd need to add a dummy new.html.erb file which simply renders _form.html.erb to use this.
Just add the new and create methods to your routes.rb file (whether by resources :usermakers, or more specific routes) and you should be good to go. Hope this helps!