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eControl has played an integral role in Fordham University School of Law's account management processes since 2005. This year, the School of Law deployed eControl's Self-Service Account Activation and Password Self-Service module to provide a seamless and enhanced student and staff user experience to start out the new school year.

Highlighted in this success story: Omni eControl

Overview

Fordham University School of Law, based in New York City, is one of the top 20 most selective law schools in the United States. The School's distinguished faculty, staff and student body comprise 2600 individuals who come from over 50 countries. At the School of Law, selectivity and high standards apply not only to admissions criteria but also to technology decisions.

In July 2010, Fordham Law School network administrators worked with Omni to customize eControl's User Self-Service Module to simplify student account activation and to deliver password self-service to their new and existing students.

The Challenge

Fordham University School of Law faced the challenge of dealing with student account activation and forgotten passwords. Student account activation, forgotten passwords and other self-service functions are a major challenge in post-secondary institutions. In many cases, student login and email accounts get created but are never activated. Typically, first-year students receive their student login, email accounts and passwords by letter when their registration is confirmed. Some students do not activate their accounts - others don't receive the letter in a timely manner, and others simply forget (which is most often the case with returning students). The challenge for the university becomes how to encourage students to login and activate their accounts without calling the help desk, which is a really busy place at the start of a semester.

The School of Law wanted a way for students to login to the School's website with their name and student ID and answer a number of challenge-response questions to automatically activate their email and directory accounts. This year, the School of Law decided to work with Omni to customize eControl to deliver the School of Law Account Activation and Self-Service Portal: https://selfserv.lawnet.fordham.edu/

The Solution

In August 2010, the School of Law implemented with outstanding success its Account Activation and User Self-Service portal. Upon registration confirmation, new students recieve a letter with their User ID and a website URL where they can go to activate their accounts. The accounts have already been provisioned in Banner and synchronized across to Active Directory, eDirectory and GroupWise via Novell Identity Manager. In eControl, students enter their name and User ID. eControl then searches the system to find the user account, prompts the student to answer a series of directory-based, challenge-response questions to confirm the user's identity, and then goes to a user self-service page that allows students to reset their password and activate the account.

eControl and Novell Identity Manager work hand in hand at Fordham Law School. When the self-service portal or a help desk member updates a password, resets a student ID, changes a user's group membership, or carries out another task, Novell Identity Manager automatically synchs the changes to the appropriate systems. While Novell Identity Manager is not required for eControl to deliver unified, role-based management, the two work very well in tandem to deliver a complete user lifecycle management solution for universities and colleges.

The Results

eControl plays an integral role in Fordham University School of Law's identity management and user self-service processes. The help desk staff use eControl as their primary application to carry out delegated account management tasks such as enabling and disabling accounts, changing passwords, updating group membership across multiple systems.

This is the first year the School of Law implemented eControl's web-based Account Activation and User Self-Service Portal. Over 600 first-year students activated their accounts and reset their passwords without a single call to the help desk.

eControl works in tandem with Novell Identity Manager which synchronizes account updates and password changes across the school's multiple systems. eControl's User Self-Service module works seamlessly with the School of Law's account activation and password self-service processes. IT administrators use eControl as their preferred tool for quickly finding information related to individual user accounts and to reset specific ID numbers. eControl was customized to be fully integrated with Fordham Law School's website look and feel.

eControl is designed to empower help desk and non-technical, front-line staff to carry out tasks securely and efficiently. eControl has certainly made the grade at Fordham University School of Law. Their IT team, staff and students depend on it every day.

More Information

• eControl Home Page
• 30-day Trial Request Form
• Administrative Overview
• Manage Mixed Networks
• Manage eDirectory
• Manage Active Directory
• Product Brochure
• Presentation
• More eControl Success Stories and Customer Testimonials
• eControl Support Forum including eControl Tips
• eControl Admin Guide

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.