Well it’s been awhile since I wrote a coding blog. This isn’t REALLY a coding blog, but the category seemed lonely, so what the hey.
Today (and yesterday… and friday) I’ve been emailing a programmer in NY, working with them to get our residents authenticated to our housing system via some web pages that they have provided. This is all in preparation for the great and mighty ‘Room Sign-up’ process, which involves current residents choosing rooms/roommates for next year. In the past, this very manual process involved MANY hours and whiteboards, lines, noisy rooms (none of which I like too well).
Anyway, welcome to the Information Age. Things can be done online, and theortically, will be done online this year. April 2, 2006 is our target date for the release of this new tool. Back to where we started – we’re HOPING to use LDAP to authenticate current residents to this website allowing them to choose preferences, pick roommates, and ultimately choose their very own room.
Will it be like choosing a seat on an airplane? No. But it’s progress. And I like progress. Rome wasn’t built in a day – and I’ll just be happy to have this thing working.
It’s kind of a beast, but I’m getting moderately good support from CBORD, and that helps keep things moving along. Anyway, I think all the puzzles pieces have been cut, we’re just trying to fit them together in a way that actually makes sense.
One of the nicest things I think about this whole process, is the integration of the SSO technology. To use LDAP authentication for the Room Sign-up Process, students will need to the use the newest version of our Unified PL/SQL Security Code (Cookie Security Code) that we’ve converted into an SSO (Single Sign-On). In short, once the student has logged in once (and as long as their session is still valid), they can move seamlessly through SSO-enabled systems without having to login to each individual system.
This technology is very powerful, and has the potential (like most powerful things) to be dangerous. Students will NEED to know to be careful as once they’ve logged in – they’ll have access to all SSO-enabled systems. Currently we have 0(zero) SSO-enabled systems that are live, but they will become more and more commonplace.
It’s fun stuff, and credit is due to Summer, who helped get all this going.
I love it when a plan comes together. I just got the email from NY saying it’s all working. Tested it twice – all seems lovely.
Just lots of work to do now. We’ll get it done. Hurray!