Keeping accounts up-to-date between systems

[ReverentCreature]

I know there is no easy solution to this but Im trying to research into how other schools handle accounts and details between their systems. At the moment we have an email system with usernames in surname first intial format TILLJ009 and we have been able to kep this username convention for our school RM network logins.

 

But this september we have getting a VLP/VLE from Uniservity which when linked in with SIMS.net will insist in its own set of username convention. The best I have found is JTILLMAN07 or maybe just JTILLMAN. The problem comes when I want to update the users for all three systems (staff and pupils).

 

How do you manage user accounts between systems? Is there a recommended process? I knwo it depends on the different types of software. I cant see how to keep the passwords the same either. Its a primary school hre and when children change their passwords its gonna mean that each system will have a different password. Staff wont know which password is in use either. And know we cant have the same username for the email system as we could potentially have for the netwok and VLP.

[dhicks]

I'm trying to research into how other schools handle accounts and details between their systems.

 

SIMS holds lists of pupils and staff. I have a web service that runs a report via CommandReporter.exe and spews out an (encrypted) XML file to any requesting client. I then have a client application on our domain controller that caches that XML file, spots any changes, and adds any new users to Active Directory, generating usernames from the names provided by SIMS and using random passwords. Active Directory can act as an LDAP server so any other application needing to authenticate users (Moodle, email, etc) can use the LDAP server.

 

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David Hicks