by Elizabeth Jenike, IT Services

Happy end of the semester! It’s good to see all the graduating students off to their new adventures and the returning classes finishing up coursework in preparation for what looks to be a busy summer. This week, IT Services is returning to our blog series: Techsplaining 101. For this edition of our informative series, we’ll be talking about account types.

Background

At Miami, the systems and services you depend on are accessed by logging into your account. Based on your current status with the University, you are given access to various tools. For instance, some staff members can log in to Banner. Students and instructors can log in to Canvas. This access is granted based on who you are and what your role is here at Miami.

Student, faculty, and staff accounts are automatically created when the corresponding relationship with Miami is established. There are, however, special circumstances in which accounts need to be requested: entity and courtesy accounts.

Entity accounts

These kinds of accounts are for groups of people and are not given to individuals. For instance, a student organization could request an entity account so that folks can email the organization directly instead of any one person associated with the group -- this helps make membership transitions easier. Another example would be the InfoSec@MiamiOH.edu email to which you forward “phishy” emails. Messages sent to this address are received by all members of the Information Security team, so communication doesn’t get lost in any one person’s inbox.

To request an entity account, you need to have at least two people associated with the account: These are the “primary” and “secondary” trustees. Primary trustees need to be a faculty or staff member at Miami. For student organizations, the primary trustee is often the sponsoring advisor. The secondary trustee can be a student officer in the organization.

With entity accounts, you can set them up to have an email inbox you can check, but you can also just have the address auto-forward any messages to your Miami email.

Read how to request an entity account in the Knowledge Base.

Courtesy accounts

These types of accounts are given to folks who are doing work for Miami and need access to our systems, but who are not affiliated with the University. Faculty and staff members can request that courtesy accounts be set up for these individuals. For instance, if you have a contractor working in your department, or a visiting faculty member, you can request a courtesy account on their behalf. 

Note: The request form must be submitted by a Dean or Department Chair.

Read how to request a courtesy account in the Knowledge Base.

Hot tip: Courtesy accounts are required to use Duo two-factor authentication!

The good news is...

Accounts of this nature and the permissions associated with them will soon be managed by our new Identity and Access Management system. Stay tuned for more information about this!