Welcome to PowerCL: Profile Manager

Improved Productivity for Everyone

Have you ever visited a web site and been asked a question such as the name of your first pet, or the name of your favorite teacher, in order to verify your identity? If so, then you should readily understand a key function of Profile Manager. When a user profile on your System i becomes disabled due to too many incorrect passord attempts while trying to sign on, Profile Manager can ask the user one or more previously answered personal questions at their current display device. If they answer the questions correctly, Profile Manager can then re-enable the user profile with either the original password, a new temporary password chosen by the user, or a new temporary password generated by Profile Manager.

From a productivity point of view:

• Your end user is able to sign on to the system and get their work done without any delays related to contacting support personnel

• Your support personnel don't get contacted, and interrupted from other work, in order to:

  • Verify that the user is who they say they are

  • Vary the display device on (the system will often vary if off)

  • Re-enable the user profile

From a satisfaction point of view:

• The manager of the end user is happy as the end user is working on the system, rather than working on accessing the system

• The manager of the support staff is happy as the problem never even hit the support staff desk

• The security administrator is happy as the answers to the Profile Manager questions are encrypted using a one-way process. There is no mechanism to display or retrieve the answers provided by the end users

A true win-win situation for all!

Summary of Profile Manager Features

• User identity verification:

  • can be accomplished using one or more previously answered personal questions

  • can be accomplished using boimetric approaches such as a finger print scan (requires additional hardware and software)

  • can be bypassed for select user profiles in the case of a shared profile (the user profile is always re-enabled using the previous password)

  • can be turned off so that some user profiles continue to work as they did before -- the user profile is disabled, the workstation device is varied off, and support personnel are called

   

• The password for a re-enabled user profile can be:

  • The same as before

  • Temporarily changed to a value selected by the user

  • Temporarily changed to a value generated by Profile Manager

   

• The new password value can be distributed to the user:

  • At their display device

  • As a message sent to a pre-determined message queue

  • By calling a program. The program could then distribute the password using mechanisms such as a text message to the users' phone, an email to the user, etc.

• The user can change their question and/or answer using the Change Question (CHGQST) command

• CL commands are provided for the help desk to:

  • Generate passwords for users

  • Initiate, from the help desk, identity verification at the user workstation (this can be useful when the user profile was disabled hours or days ago)

  • Provide identity verification at the help desk with the user on the phone to provide the correct answer

  • Enable a user profile with no Profile Manager identity verification (the help desk knows the person is who they say they are)