IMPORTANT: The Smith Essentials Page
web portal is ONLY available to University faculty and staff, and
those students who have BMGT as their primary major. If you believe that you
should have access but do not, please contact
portalhelp@rhsmith.umd.edu.
The Smith
Essentials Page uses the University Directory server for security (sometimes
called the LDAP server). Your username and password are maintained in that
system, not in the portal and not by the Smith school. You
must know your username and password stored in that directory to use the
portal.
In the
USER NAME field, please input your University
Directory name. In the PASSWORD field, enter
your University Directory password. Hit the SUBMIT
link when you are done, or simply hit return.
The University
Directory username and password is the same as the one you might use for
Smith's Blackboard system, WebCT, or CorporateTime. As of Fall, 2003, it can
also be used in Testudo and ARES as well. The campus maintains a help page
for the University Directory
here,
which describes how to set an initial password, how to look up your user
name, and other important information.
Also, even though
you may use your social security number and PIN to change this password,
your social security number and PIN combination are not affected by the
University Directory password change--keep using the old PIN where you are
required to do so.
The portal uses
information collected from a variety of campus data sources. The Smith
school is only a consumer of this information; we have no ability to make
changes to this information in the source systems. If you see some
information listed incorrectly here (for example, your email address or the
spelling of your name), please edit your personal information in
Testudo
(for students) or Ares (for
faculty/staff-go to Payroll and Human Resources on the menu, then
Display/Update Personal Data). Most changes should be reflected here in
about 24 hours, though depending on the nature of the change a weekend may
have to pass before the results take effect.
If you have
questions (after reading the Q&A section below), please contact
portalhelp@rhsmith.umd.edu
for more assistance. If there is something that should be added to this
page, please contact us with that information as well.
Q& A:
Q: I can’t
log in.
Answer: Are
you are using the username and password that can be found at
https://ldap.umd.edu/cgi-bin/chpwd?searchbyssn? Other usernames
and passwords you may know (Testudo, Ares, Netware, Notes, and so on) will
not work in this system.
Alternate
Answer: Access to this portal is only given to University faculty and
staff and to students whose primary major is in BMGT. If you do not fall
into this category you will not be able to log in.
Q: If I
change this password, will it affect other campus systems that I use?
Answer:
Yes, changing the University Directory (LDAP) password can affect other
systems. Here's a rough map of what passwords are used on which systems:
-
University
Directory: Smith Blackboard, Smith Education Portal, WebCT, and
CorporateTime; and your logins to ARES and Testudo if you choose to use
the University Directory to log in to those services.
-
SID/PIN:
Testudo, ARES, MARS
-
Smith Netware:
only Netware
-
Smith Notes:
only Notes
-
WAM, Glue,
ACCMail, etc, etc... only those systems
So, for example,
if you were to change your University Directory password, you would have to
use that new password in WebCT and CorporateTime as well. It would not
affect your Testudo account, even though you might have used the Testudo
username and password to change the University Directory password. You also
cannot start using your University Directory username for Testudo--Testudo
will continue using the old SID/PIN for a while longer, until it can be
rewritten to use the University Directory username/password.
Q: Why did
we add yet another password to the list I have to remember?!? What's so good
about the University Directory password?
Answer:
This answer is kind of technical, but we figure many people will be curious.
Though it might
seem that we're adding another password, it's a part of a University-wide
effort to actually reduce the total number of passwords people use.
Undergraduates are likely already using the University Directory, since they
probably have classes that use WebCT elsewhere in the University. BMGT
students, faculty, and staff will use it for the Smith web portal. And
remember: previously, students had individual usernames and passwords for
the Notes databases for each class they were in (and had to get a new set of
five every semester), but now will just have the one University Directory
password for Blackboard for the whole time they're here once we cut over to
that system completely.
Users may now have
over a dozen username/password pairs to remember. This is a legacy of all
the different systems that have grown up independently around campus. Until
the past year or so, there has been no way to tie the security on systems
from different vendors together; there was no common standard. Now, the
University Directory is that common standard. New systems implemented in the
University should be able to interface with the University Directory for
usernames and passwords. We're also working to move old systems to use the
University Directory as well, so that all systems on campus will hopefully
eventually use the University Directory for security. This is important,
because the use of social security numbers as usernames is highly
discouraged, and passwords that are only made up of numbers are fairly easy
to guess, or "hack."
An advantage that
the old SSN/PIN had was that it was guaranteed to be unique for everyone at
the University, while systems that were only in certain schools or
departments were not. The the University Directory username shares this
characteristic, so it can be used by any system anywhere in the University
without fear that a second user showing up and clashing. This is extremely
handy when integrating systems; we know for certain that if someone signs
into the web portal as <username>, that they will also be <username> in
Blackboard, WebCT, and so on.
Return to the portal login screen.
