Posted by Dedra Chamberlin on May 11, 2020 12:12:44 PM

EDUCAUSE SPC is including a focus on mental health related to delivering technology services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cirrus Identity is not a mental health company, but a huge part of our passion is designing solutions that reduce the time and frustration users experience when accessing digital services. 

We have all experienced the frustration of signing up for new services and trying to log into them a few months after we sign up only to discover we've forgotten the account we used or the password we created.

Registration screen - Invalid login warning

This pain point is especially acute in the college applicant experience. Student applicants and their parents/guardians are asked to create new accounts for a myriad of systems: admissions, housing, financial aid, orientation programs, and more. 

Many universities have set up Single Sign-On solutions, but those almost universally require that users have an account in the campus' central identity management system. That means that many campuses create user accounts for tens of thousands of applicants, only to later purge the majority of those accounts when applicants do not commit to enroll.

Imagine a Single Sign-On experience across all the digital services an applicant or parent/guardian needs, without having to create enterprise accounts until an applicant actually enrolls. That is one of the most popular solutions Cirrus Identity offers.

With the Cirrus Identity Gateway (Social Login), Proxy, and Account Linking services, applicants can use a third party identity provider like Google, Microsoft, or Cirrus Identity's brand-able External Identity Provider to log to multiple applications as an applicant, and then migrate seamlessly to campus login once they matriculate.

Below are a two sample login screens which leverage Cirrus Identity's solutions for applicants:

Carnegie Mellon Login Screen for Parent/Guardian Access

 

CMU Login Screen, showing social login for parents and guardians

University of Oregon Login Screen for Scholarship Tracking (Academic Works)

UofO Login Screen, showing social login and enterprise login for scholarship applicants

The same login experience can be applied after students graduate to support login for alumni with third party accounts. 

University of Michigan Login Screen for Alumni Engagement

UMich Login screen, showing social or enterprise login for alumni accounts

In this way, Cirrus solutions can help provide a seamless login experience for users from prospect to alumni status. 

Seamless Access

We take great pride in enabling secure and simple user flows for accessing digital services.

Given the rapid migration of many services online in light of the current pandemic, we hope our solutions can make accessing digital services something that is easy, not stressful.

To learn more, please

Visit the Cirrus Identity Website

And we hope to "see" you at our virtual exhibit at this year's EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference.

 

Topics: Social Identity, Higher Education, OpenID Connect, Guest Accounts, Security